WonderCon '17: The Panels

Aside from an excellent exhibit floor, WonderCon had several panels every hour and we ended up attending several on Friday and Saturday. On Friday we checked out a session on the pre-visualization of hit Wolverine movie Logan where guests discussed creating a non-superhero movie starring superheroes and how writer/director James Mangold pushed them to "make it real". Which is kind of weird when you think of it since the dude has a metal skeleton and another guy can control people with his mind but whatever. It did push the crew to be more creative and not fall back on tired tropes or exaggerated action sequences with lots of explosions. After that it was a celebration of Buffy and Angel to celebrate 20 years with a preview of an upcoming oral history book from genre writer and super fan Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross. This was a fun panel as the two talked about how they ended up writing a book on Buffy (their publisher wanted another book after their Star Trek themed oral history, anniversary was coming, one of their favorite shows) and the good old days of genre journalism of the 80's and 90's with Fangoria, Starlog, Cinefantastique and Cinescape. Gross told a funny story about looking up Joss Whedon and calling him and the young writer being so thankful of the early support. In the years to come, Whedon would make himself available to Gross for hours at a time for interviews but when Whedon landed The Avengers, the accessibility ended.

The Arena was pretty quiet and media presence was limited in general with only Warner Brothers putting on a studio panel that filled up quick as Annabelle 2 and Wonder Woman were previewed. But the cast and crew of Archie showed up to a full house with Luke Perry looking very scruffy and not knowing how to handle social media while the kid who plays Archie started talking and freaked everyone out. Turns out he's from New Zealand and has the accent too boot.

Jim Lee's WildStorm celebrated 25 years with a large panel of artists, writers, inkers and contributors. Highlight tidbits included learning that Lee now has 9 kids from two wives and that WS started off in a one bedroom apartment, then two bedrooms then an actual studio in a bank building. Lee and long time inker Scott Williams argued about who would pay for the fax machine and realized they needed assistants and finance people to actual run a company. It was a very familial atmosphere as Lee encouraged young artists to strive and become the next themselves, not a copy of him. Many were away from home for the first time and lived in a nice apartment in a nice part of town that was soon trashed and dubbed the "Crack house". Lee helped the young guys with money, buying cars, bailed them out of jail and to save time, hired someone to come in and cut all of their hair at the same time. Apparently they all got sweet bowl cuts. There was mention of Brett Booth who unfortunately couldn't attend, Damme it! I asked Lee if between WildCats toys, a video game and animated series if a film was ever seriously considered. He responded that it never got past the pitch stage and it would have just been too big a project for the pre-X-Men and Spider-Man era.

We caught the tail end of Valiant's panel on digital offerings that includes a Ninjak web series then sat in for the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary. Cleaned up versions of old games are on the way as well as additional upgrades to latest release Street Fighter V. E-gaming league, the Capcom Cup is also in full swing with hundreds of thousands of dollars up for grabs. I'd love to check one of these events some day to see some bitching gameplay and epic smack talk.

Summer Cinema: X-Men Apocalypse

The summer cinematic superhero season continues as X-Men: Apocalypse is poised to pass $200 million worldwide by the end of the long Memorial Day weekend. It's been an interesting road for the genetically mutated and wondrously powered X-Men after Fox bought the screen rights from Carolco's bankruptcy and placed Bryan Singer at the helm with Wolverine at the forefront. 2000's X-Men was the first of it's kind and with Spider-Man, ushered in the big budget comic book era we currently live in. Back then comic book movies were still wildly uneven and X-Men was given a decent if unspectacular $75 million budget and a mid-level cast of familiar faces and strong actors if not box office stars like Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan and Halle Berry. Production was stopped twice and it's July box office success was a bit of a shock. Afraid to truly embrace the comic book nature of bright costumes and whiz bang action, X-Men tries to ground things in reality, makes being a mutant akin to being a suppressed homosexual or tortured prisoner of war and the costumes are very The Matrix-esque with black leather replacing blue and yellow tights.

Fox has always chased the stars as X2 put Halle Berry's Storm up front after the actress won an Oscar. The same happened after Jennifer Lawrence went supernova in The Hunger Games and all of a sudden the shape shifting henchman Mystique was now a lead character. Minor character Gambit, played by Taylor Kitsch in Origins: Wolverine was now going to be a standalone film starring Channing Tatum, hot off of Magic Mike and 21 Jump Street but after diminishing returns on Jupiter Ascending and Magic Mike 2, the project has seemingly gone quiet. While X2 became a standard of quality in the genre, X-Men 3 suffered from a troubled production which saw Bryan Singer jump ship to DC and Warner Brothers for the ill fated Superman Returns, replacement Matthew Vaughn left shortly before production was to begin and Brett Ratner was brought in last minute, smashed two scripts together and became the franchises' whipping boy even though his effort is totally watchable and leaps and bounds better than Origins: Wolverine.

First Class breathed new life into the franchise by taking the action back to the 60's but the film grossed less than the four films that preceded it. Fox made the wise move of blending the original X-Men trilogy with the new cast while more or less rebooting the series with Days of Future Past and grossed a franchise high $747 million bucks. Then the long gestating Deadpool turned the genre on it's head with a modestly budgeted, foul mouthed and violent R-rated juggernaut to become the highest grossing film in the series. Now comes X-Men: Apocalypse where our heroes and villains battle a powerful mutant from Egyptian times. We're reintroduced to the likes of optic blasting Scott Summers aka Cyclops, super telekinetic Jean Grey and the blue skinned teleporter Nightcrawler who are now youngsters in the 80's. Sitting in the darkened theater I was surprised how much I enjoyed the film. No X-flick has truly been great but after 16 years, it seemed like they were finally embracing the comic books and Apocalypse was the X-Men'iest film to date. While some might be frustrated at the shoe horned number of characters in the film, they're all given their five minutes, even if that means no one gets to stand out or really shine. I just had fun watching so many characters, many in costume, flying and jumping and running and fighting while using their powers in a world that was finally simply presented instead of explained.

Sure you could nitpick about lack of character development or epic-ness and questionable CGI but overall I had an excellent time and would see it again. Though for a film set in the 80's there's a distinct lack of neon, synth, Dazzler and awesomely 80's as hell Longshot, the dude with spiky blonde hair, a mullet and a black leather outfit. On an even more personal level, I was just happy to see Cyclops not be the bitch of the series like James Marsden's version was in the past. I laughed out loud when we got a glimpse of his 90's style outfit where straps, pouches and shoulder pads were all the rage. Franchise fatigue has definitely set in for the X-Men as reviews have not been kind and box office grosses coming in lower than projected. Contracts for stars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence are all fulfilled. Fox is already focusing on a Deadpool sequel, X-Force and The New Mutants but young Cyke, Jean and Nightcrawler Tye Sheridan, Sophie Turner and Kodi Smit-McPhee are all signed on for at least two more films. The stage is set for a kinetic and action packed, more contained story set in the 90's so here's hoping we get it.

Weird(cool) Panels: Captain America Man & Wolf

This installment of Weird(cool) panels is brought to you by the most action packed decade in comic books, the 1990's! By 1992, I had been reading Captain America comics for about 3 years, starting with the absolutely legendary 1980 9 issue arc by Roger Stern and John Bryne, collected as War & Remembrance. From there I started reading Cap monthly, growing up on Ron Lim's bulky and action oriented style along with Mark Gruenwald's writing which pitted Cap against The Serpent Society, drug dealers and the Red Skull's Skeleton Crew. By 1992, Lim moved on and Rik Levins took over. His art wasn't as crisp or impressive as Lim's but had an energy about it along with giving each character a long and lithe look compared to Lim's blocky and compact style. Issues 402 through 408 belong in Cap's Weird(cool) Hall of Fame because the Star Spangled Avenger becomes a werewolf! I've had the hankering to revisit the saga after seeing a new Cap action figure come with a replaceable wolf head. I don't need another Cap action figure but my lady was sweet enough to buy me the head by itself on eBay. With the majority of my comics collection is in storage in another state, WonderCon came through as my lady spotted the trade in a 60% off bin and I nabbed it.

In the crazy 6 part run, Steve Rogers aka Captain America is looking for his pilot, one John Jameson, son of Spider-Man's newspaper publishing nemesis J. Jonah Jameson. John was a decorated NASA pilot and astronaut who came into contact with a gem on the surface of the moon which turned him into a manwolf. He's now gone missing at the same time as a rash of rumored werewolf killings are happening in quaint northern Massachusetts. Going to investigate, Cap seeks out some supernatural support but Dr. Strange unavailable, so Doctor Druid is enlisted to help him on his quest. The pony tailed master of the occult agrees and the two Sky Cycle up to Starkesboro, population 932 where they're immediately attacked by a werewolf and a silver masked and haired baddie on a flying motorcycle, Moonhunter. Turns out the town has some natural lycanthropes, you know people who turn into werewolves while others are being turned into them by Dr. Nightshade and her caped, bad guy wizard boss Dredmund. X-Men scrapper Wolverine is also investigating the murders and fights it out with a horde of werewolves before being captured and injected with werewolf serum but his healing ability rejects it. Instead Wolvie gets mind controlled like the rest of the town and becomes a more feral and violent version of himself.

Meanwhile back in New York we get an appearance from Steve Rogers' former love, Bernie Rosenthal, whom he met in War & Remembrance coincidentally. Bernie is back in town trying to get back together but Steve had been seeing former criminal and thief Diamondback unofficially. In the meantime, Bernie screws up as she's taking a walk with Avenger butler Jarvis and Steve's old friend, Dennis Dunphry, a former pro-wrestler turned superhero sidekick D-Man. D-Man was recently found in suspended animation up in the arctic and has been a mute near zombie ever since. But he does hit the gym with Cap, bench pressing 8500 pounds! Anyways, Jarvis has to bolt then Bernie loses sight of Dennis who wanders off in Central Park. Back in Stakesboro, Cap is captured and injected with the wolf serum, turning him into Cap-Wolf! From there he has to try and maintain his humanity, organize his fellow wolf captives and lead a revolt. Wolfsbane from X-Force makes an appearance, as does her leader Cable, the giant shoulder padded and gun toting soldier from the future. Adding to the WeirdCool-ness, Dr. Druid has some interesting mind powers like being able to levitate Cap out of trouble and heal his slit throat by sheer force of will. It's like that yoga Dhalsim does that lets you spit fire.

CapWolf leads the prison escape, faces off with Dredmund and grabs the Moongem. In a kind of random showdown, Cable and CapWolf get stymied by a giant rug wrapping them up which Wolverine then slashes through to set them free. Turns out the alpha wolf in captivity is John Jameson, who has been trying to find a way to be as super heroic as Cap and the Avengers after being an astronaut was no longer enough in the modern age. Man & Wolf is a fast and fun read which a familiar but enjoyable set up of a small town taken over by an evil baddie, experimenting on the locales. Throw in a found on the moon gem that turns you into a wolf, Cap spending half the issues as one, cameos from Wolvie and Cable and you've got yourself a quirky yet well executed change of pace. You even get some Infinity Gauntlet/War spillover as Captain America's evil darkside manifests into reality and tries to kill him. I don't know how Cap was selling back then but the issues were running twice a month which I'm pretty sure is a good thing.

Supporting Mark Gruenwald and Rik Levins you had Danny Buldanadi, Steve Alexandrove, Don Hudson and Ray Kryssing on Inks, Joe Rosen and Bob Sharpe doing Lettering, Gina Going and Arianne Lenshoer Coloring then Pat Garrahy, Barry Dutter, Ralph Macchio and Mike Rockwitz Editing. While it's been 15 years since I first read these issues, they were still pretty fresh in my mind. It was funny going back and realizing that Cap was picking bullet slugs off his armor, not the slimy bugs and as a 10 year old wondering why those things you see on the sidewalk would hurt. Reading up on the issues, I found out that artist Rik Levins went into video games after spending 3 years on Cap then started teaching at Full Sail University. Levins sadly passed away in 2010 from complications of cancer. Thanks to Levin and team for providing me with childhood adventure that has made for positive lifelong memories.

Ask Me a Question: X-Men: Days of Future Past

After cinematic go rounds with Spider-Man and Godzilla, it was time to get even bigger.  X-Men: Days of Future Past is allegedly Fox's biggest greenlit film in history behind Avatar.  Why?  Because the filmmakers decided to make a huge summer tent pole action film that involved time travel, a period setting and two casts.  Two casts?  Yup.  If you've kept up with the X franchise since 2000's X-Men, 2003's X2: X-Men United, 2006's The Last Stand, 2009's Origins: Wolverine, 2011's First Class and 2013's The Wolverine, you know that the merry mutants call for a huge entourage of guys and gals with wondrous and freakish abilities who fight on the side of good and evil.  First Class served as a prequel with James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender taking over roles previously played by Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan.  Days of Future Past blends the new and original cast while introducing yet even more new characters.  What could have descended into overcrowded camp a la Batman and Robin (which is still an enjoyable romp, what?!), Days does a surprisingly effective job of utilizing both casts to tell a grand tale ripped from the panels of the comic books.

Continuity has always been an issue in the X-Men franchise because the original was a difficult production that studio Fox didn't quite believe in.  When it was a success, it was more about getting to the next film than it was maintaining a cohesive timeline.  In The Wolverine, we saw Hugh Jackman's gruff, adamantium metal fitted bones and clawed anti-hero hanging out in Japan.  Upon return he's greeted by friends-enemies-friends Professor Xavier (Stewart) and Erik Lehnsherr aka Magneto (McKellan) who have put their differences aside to face a larger threat and need Wolverine's help.  From there we jump right into Days of Future Past with a small contingent of X-Men; Kitty Pryde, Iceman, Colossus, Bishop, War Path, Sunspot and Blink as they continuously evade seemingly unstoppable mutant hunting machines, The Sentinels.  I think it's Warpath who can sense them coming then Kitty transfers the consciousness of Bishop to his body a few days prior to warn his comrades so they can escape death.  Xavier, Magneto, Wolverine and old standby Storm catch up with the crew and think they can change the present by altering the past.  With Logan's healing factor and slow aging, he's the perfect candidate to go back 50 years to 1973 to help stop an assassination that will cause the Sentinel program to take root.

We then switch settings and casts for the 1974 scenes which sees Professor Xavier a shell of his former self after destructive results of First Class 10 years prior.  Logan, Xavier and Hank McCoy aka Beast recruit the super fast mutant Peter (Pietro in the comics) Maximoff (Evan Peters) to help break young Magneto (Fassbender) out of the Pentagon so they can stop the shape shifting Raven aka Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from taking out weapons and Sentinel designer Bolivar Trask (Game of Thrones' Peter Dinklage).  His death will trigger even more anti-mutant fervor while cementing the need for the Sentinel program.  The flick starts off well enough, just diving right in without much set up or explanation.  Even as a fan of the movies and comics, I was a little confused though as The Sentinel program seemed to come out of nowhere.  I suppose it could have all happened in the 7 year gap between Last Stand and Days but a little clarification would have been nice. 

Early scenes show the young X-Men using their powers to battle the Sentinels with Iceman finally flying around on ice bridges and slides.  Initial scenes with young Xavier and Magneto are very powerful with excellent performances from McAvoy and Fassbender. The 70's vibe provides some laughs with the fashion, water beds, etc.  Hugh Jackman looks swoler and striated as ever in his surprisingly lone shirtless scene but he does get in a heinie shot which I think is a first for the X-Flicks and does his usual likable loner act.  Going into the flick, everything we had seen of Quicksilver looked hokey and ridiculous.  His appearance seemed to be derived from Doc Brown from Back to the Future and the Carl's Jr ad of him eating a burger in super speed/slow motion was just awkward.  But in the film, it all works marvelously and he's one of the most memorable characters in the flick with arguably the greatest scene in the picture as he uses his super speed and mischievous sense of humor to break Magneto out.  In the comics, Mags is his father and there's a throwaway line alluding to it.

With the two casts jockeying for screen time, I was slightly astonished that much of the film takes place in the 70's with the First Class cast and Wolverine in a bit of a supporting role.  I figured it would jump between time lines with conflicts reflecting each other a la Inception but for the most part, the present day cast is confined to what seemed like only a handful of meaty scenes which don't really utilize or showcase characters like Kitty Pryde, Iceman and Bishop or the actors who play them.  That's actually a departure for this series that has always been so Wolverine centric and then gave Storm a boost at the expense of Cyclops when Halle Berry won an Oscar.  There are some great cameos throughout and the film ends on a high note that gets you pumped for future installments.  If you're going to see this, forgo the post-conversion 3D as it adds nothing to the experience.  NOTHING.  The Arclight's glasses are incredibly heavy and uncomfortable and they're battery operated so you get power flickers too boot.

After the film, producer Lauren Schuler Donner and Quicksilver, Iceman and Bishop actors Evan Peters, Shawn Ashmore and Omar Sy participated in a Q&A that was streamed out to each Arclight location around California.  Some quick bites:

- Project was brought to Donner's attention by former development exec, she read Wolverine's bio in a series bible and loved him.
- X-Men was most difficult because they didn't know what direction to go, she shrugs off part 3
- Story hammered out by Bryan Singer, Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman and Simon Kinberg then bounced off of Donner and then Kinberg went off to write script.
-X2 writers Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris did a few tweaks and are coming back for X-Men: Apocalypse which is still in story development mode.
- Had a subplot where present day Magneto, Professor X and Iceman go to the Mansion to rescue Rogue (Anna Paquin) but was cut due to time restraints.  Will be finished and scored and included in DVD release.
- It was kind of a low key affair but Omar Sy was visibly excited to be there and won the audience with his love for the franchise, gratitude for the opportunity and French man charm.
- Evan Peters was offered the role flat while Ashmore had to audition 5 times back in 2000 and was cast as a different character before taking over Bobby Drake.
- Shooting the movie was like a family reunion and Sy's first day was working with Professor X, Magneto, Storm and Wolverine which also meant Patrick, McKellan, Berry and Jackman.
- James McAvoy is a practical joker and cut the cheese in the middle of a scene
- Scheduling nightmare as Jackman was promoting Wolverine, Ashmore on The Following, Paquin on True Blood, Patrick and McKellan starring in a play together, etc.

I don't quite understand all the loathe for X-Men 3.  Part of it stems from the casting off of director Brett Ratner as a talentless hack but they guy knows how to make movies look good, always has great casts and has made fun flicks like Rush Hour and Rush Hour 2 with enjoyable mass market efforts like The Family Man, After the Sunset and Tower Heist.  X3 isn't perfect, there's too many characters crammed in, Cyclops gets killed off after 4 minutes of screen time, blah blah but the same people who made Days, made The Last Stand and had no problem singing it's praises on the DVD features and commentaries.  After director Matthew Vaughn jumped ship thinking he couldn't do what he wanted to do in the limited time frame, Ratner came in with little prep and made a perfectly fine X-Men movie because let's face it, X-Men isn't a masterpiece and Origins: Wolverine is downright crap with it's shoddy f/x, nonsensical mutant cameos, poor production values and unfulfilled potential.  While people go see Marvel marathons, I seriously doubt you'd get too many people willing to sit down for a triple feature of X-Men movies.

The Arclight does stuff like this all the time I feel but this just felt underwhelming.  From the eh moderating to the volume of the microphones being barely audible to the 20 minutes to get out of the parking garage, it was just like all the energy and goodwill from the film had been sucked out.

Summer Cinema Shootout: July

July tends to be a busy month between my birthday and Comic-Con.  After a certain point you tend to want to stop caring but I have great friends who won't let me and end up celebrating it several times at and outside of work via sweets, treats, company wide parties, meat filled dinners and a screening of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for good measure.

The last movie I remember opening on my birthday was 2002's Reign of Fire, the man VS dragon epic set in a charred earth future.  This year gave me Pacific Rim, Grown Ups 2, The Hunt (Mads Mikkelsen alert!) and Pawn Shop Chronicles (Thomas Jane alarm!).  While I didn't manage to see three of those, I did get out for a few more for the month:

Pacific Rim:  The most fun I had at the movies all summer.  Makes me wish I had more purpose in life like piloting a giant robot to defend earth from alien invaders instead of being subjected to the fear mongering media, sell out government and desensitized yet touchy masses.  The best example of the magic of movies I've seen in a long time.

Red 2:  Ridiculous, white washed, older person fun just like the first only a bit more over the top.  Like it's predecessor suffers from real lulls but packs some laughs and action with a great cast. 

Only God Forgives:  The most bizarre and most interesting film of the summer, maybe my year.  Shocked at how it progressed but not upset by it.  Truly surprised Ryan Gosling took a beating like that and didn't get even.  Real guts from the filmmakers to not give the audience what they expected.

The Wolverine:  Miles ahead of X-Men Origins, that infuriating piece of expensive, talent filled shit.  No army of annoying mutant cameos and would be franchise launchers here.  Down and dirty, surprised Fox let them get away with such a serious, existential chapter dealing with loss, love (albeit a little forced, the Jean Grey romance is a tad stretched) and the ol' conundrum of living forever.  Whoa, I feel like I'm in Highlander...

July Winner:  Pacific Rim by Elbow Rocket! and pure cinema magical goodness.

Comic-Con'do Musings: Cinematic Cyclops

Hugh Jackman is about to play Wolverine for the 6th time.  That's as many times as there are Superman movies.  More times than cinematic Spider-Man and one less than Batman.  Where 5 actors have played Batman and his mask Bruce Wayne, Hugh has played Wolvie each and every time.  Soon he'll venture into Roger Moore James Bond territory.  This past Saturday in Hall H he appeared on the FOX panel for two different movies, playing the same character!

Anyone who has read X-Men knows Wolverine is the moody hot head with unbreakable bones, claws that pop out of his knuckles, healing factor and gravity defying hair.  While the level headed leader who fires optic blasts that shatter mountains is Cyclops.  Calm, cool and collected yet a babe magnet (Jean Grey, Psylocke, White Queen) and badass in his own right; Cyclops has never been given any cinematic credit.  In X-Men he isn't phased by Logan's tantrums but doesn't have much to do besides be the punch line, have his girlfriend hit on and not be able to land a jet.  In part II, he has a quick fight scene, gets captured, mind controlled and forgotten for much of the running time.  His minutes quickly run out in X3 as Cyke is in brooding mode over the loss of Jean Grey and then seemingly vaporized by her returning spirit/ghost/whatever.  Poor James Marsden...but seriously, he's doing alright.

My theory is that the X-Men movies were made too late.  If this were a 90's joint, prime time of the buddy picture, we could have had a great cinematic version of Cyclops played by none other than the sensitive action hero himself, Michael Biehn.  Biehn was the rare breed of "action" hero that was equal parts handsome, physical, courageous and vulnerable.  Look to his performance as the lovelorn, time traveling, father of the future Kyle Reese in The Terminator.  Or as soft spoken, take command under pressure while fighting Xenomorph hordes, Corporal Hicks in Aliens.  Or maybe his greatest cinematic Cyclops similarity, Lieutenant James Curran in 1990's Navy Seals where he's paired with bad boy Charlie Sheen.

In Seals, Biehn plays a leader who is strong yet compassionate and carries the responsibility of protecting his team while still managing to get the girl.  Sheen plays hot dog Hawkins, the brash, "shoot first, ask questions never" type who tries to get the chick but fails.  His recklessness ends up costing the life of a team member and gets him into a verbal beatdown with Curran, who is holding the stone of grief.  By the end of the film Hawkins has to give up his selfish ways in order to save Curran's life and get the team to safety.

This dynamic absolutely could have worked with Cyclops and Wolverine.  If you'd like a classier example because you're a movie snob who's never seen Navy Seals but judges anyway because you saw Clerks; I give you Lethal Weapon's Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson, best dad ever in The Patriot) and Roger Murtaugh (Danny "Damn birds" Glover).  One's crazy, one's calm, one shoots to kill, the other to wound and question.  Or just look to Leonardo (leads) and Raphael (cool but crude) from Ninja Turtles.  It's the same damn thing. 

But X-Men was a gamble, big budget comic book movies were far from the norm in 2000; so much so that FOX hedged their bets around the mysterious loner/badass character, had drafts of the film titled Wolverine and the X-Men, shut down production midway to reassess and the fact that it was a hit and spawned 4 sequels is a bit of a movie miracle.  Besides, Cyclops is already dead during the Days of Future Past story arc so we can't really complain about his absence.

Ah well, maybe someday, after Hugh Jackman stops playing Wolverine we'll get a decent onscreen adaption of Cyclops.

Here's the golf scene from Navy Seals featuring Biehn, Sheen, Bill Paxton, Dennis Haysbert and Rick Rossovich among others just cause: