One of the bigger problems First Class had was who they could actually use within the universe because honestly it never sounded like they had a clear idea what the movie was. But it does highlight a larger problem the X-Men movies have always had, focusing on a minimal number of characters and really to hell with…

The X-Men TAS was really ambitious in its first two seasons with its serialized storytelling (and FOX did them no favors by consistently no adhering to that sequencing).

I think one the reasons the AoA books work is that you were able to see a lot of character arcs played out to their logical conclusions (or at least at the time) in ways they were absolutely not allowed to do in the regular books. You get to see characters like Rogue and Iceman reach their potential, Sabretooth…

Vulcan wasn't a terrible idea (although maybe in the same way Onslaught wasn't a terrible idea to start), but after his introduction, he is literally distanced from the X-Men books and then just turned into a stereotypical space despot and then killed. Absolutely no work was put into making him a usable character…

A lot of this had to do with Lobdell never knowing when he was going to be off the book. He got the job on an interim basis and Marvel never really secured that position for him (or Nicieza for that matter). So he was setting up stories with the expectation that he would be off the book in a few months time and…

Except it's not really brought up again aside from Morrison's run and is usually hand waved away as just being Cyclops. In fact, Cyclops being a "villain" never really matches up with what's in the page and what's said in promos and interviews.

Not to mention the whole Phoenix story which had been building since Decimation essentially gets pushed aside to tell an Avengers centric story with the X-Men awkwardly being inserted as antagonists (although this isn't the first time Marvel has done exactly this).

They kind of did with Rise of Apocalypse which talked about his early days in Egypt. But the only thing memorable about that was some really great Adam Pollina art.

I haven't read past the first volume of Extraordinary X-Men but I sort of get the feeling Lemire is at the mercy of editorial who won't let him use Cyclops (I guess because he's dead) and won't let him directly tell the story of why he's dead and why everyone hates him now (because they committed so steadfastly to…

The AoA books are somewhat inconsistent just from the basis how they were conceived. Some issues work better if you have an understanding of what was happening with the X-Men books at the time (I've been poking around in them the last few weeks if I'm in a Barnes and Noble, since they have the collections there). …

It always confuses me when people say Hickman doesn't connect on a character level. It feels like they're just skimming the dialogue/context because every word he writes is purposeful and if someone is missing that, they're losing out on his writing significantly.

It's when he shows up, and his entire reaction and purpose is to comfort her…that is just perfect. People who don't get that that's Superman…confounds me.

Buffy had a similar problem and I think it extends to a lack of authority. When a show is based around a group of high school students (or a lower level of education), so there's inherently a hierarchy and a very clear sense of authority for the characters to ether directly or indirectly rail against. Teachers,…

Ugh, Johns talking about Rebirth suggests that he's anything but…"traditional values with a modern aesthetic."

Ha, my LCS did a Family Fued style thing a few weeks ago and one of the questions was "what was one Batman's biggest regrets?" I was just watching but turned to the person I was talking to said "probably that time he pissed himself surprising Carmine Falcone." Thanks for that bit of comics trivia, Kevin Smith.

I thought Civil War was on the right track in terms of storytelling but the Russos are competent directors and not necessarily going to elevate the script to where it needs to be in the way Marty McKee is talking about.

Hmm…I'd say the Dark Knight comes closest but probably in the next wave of filmmakers who actually grew up on these superhero films. The genre has a lot of similarities to western, gangster, and samurai genres, which all took time to get legitimately great films out of them.

I'm not sure it's accurate to the view the landscape like that since there were a bunch of flops after X-Men in regards to superhero movies. To the point when Iron Man came out in 2008, it wasn't even expected to do that well at the box office. X-Men showed that people were willing to go to superhero movies but I'd…

WHEN IS JIM LEE GOING TO GET HIS SHOT!?

Eh, their reason for being there wound up being moot and Tony does not deal with baggage at all.