X-men Month - Mini Review: X-men: The Last Stand

And so we have come to the third entry to the Franchise and possibly one of the more infamous ones. X-men: The Last Stand was released in 2006 and it had a hell of a production history. Bryan Singer, who had directed the first two movies left to direct Superman returns instead… You’d think that’d be the obvious way to go but Superman returns received a mixed reception and made less money than this movie.

Beyond that, the main actors were only contracted for 2 films, so their contracts had to be renewed, for Hugh Jackman that meant getting director approval. Matthew Vaughn was assigned to direct when they entered pre-production but family issues meant he departed before filming started. In the end they hired Brett Ratner, who really didn’t know a lot about the X-men.

In the writing department we have Simon Kinberg, who at that point had written Fantastic 4 and Elektra… Be afraid…

And of course we have studio interference as well, with a lot of the original elements for Jean Grey’s role ordered to be cut down because it was considered too dark for a summer blockbuster. They also killed for major character deaths and I’ll get to that in the story section.

Which is right now, so take a look at X-men 3

X-men Month - Mini Review: X-men 2 (X2: X-men United)

We rejoin the action in X-men month

X-men was both critically and commercially successful so a sequel was inevitable, but it took its sweet ass time getting to us, it was May 2003 before the sequel aired. The script underwent various rewrites (and I’m taking my info from Wikipedia so make of it what you will) cutting out minor characters (Angel and Beast were supposed to appear) and giving Storm more screen time after Halle Berry’s success in Monster’s Ball, which won her an academy award, can we retroactively take that back after Catwoman?

  

Relax! I’m kidding. Released in May 2003 on a $110 million budget it managed to score around $410m, another tidy profit for Fox and enough that they continue the franchise in a third movie which I’ll cover later this week. It met with positive reviews with a 86% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and an average 7.5/10 on IMDb, both improvements over the first one. But let’s take a look for ourselves.

X-men Month - Mini Review: X-men

It’s July, you know what that means, X-men month

Yes, I have to start by apologising that this will be almost entirely be mini reviews. I thought I might have been able to get a rage out of 3 and Origins: Wolverine but the truth is I kinda liked them and I’m not sure there’s any ground other reviewers haven’t already established. That’s not to say they’re not flawed (in many very obvious ways) but that’s for those reviews.

Just FYI, despite the X-men cameos, I’m not covering Deadpool. But if you’d like my views them I’ll briefly say overall, I enjoyed the film but it was very much what I expected out of the film and not much more. Kudos to the marketing department for helping make it a massive success.

I’m also not covering Apocalypse. I’m writing this in April, in fact 2 weeks after I should’ve done it really so I’ve not got the time to be covering a movie not even out yet.

Also, also, there will be a 4 issue test of Power Man and Iron Fist coming out this month, I know it’s late since #4 was out in May but I haven’t had anywhere else to put it. So, without further ado, let’s take a look at X-men

4 Issue Test #18 - Uncanny Avengers

Now if there’s one facet of the Marvel Universe they’ve expanded since Secret Wars, it’s the Avengers, there are 6 different Avengers titles out there, each with a unique roster. Those titles are: All New All Different Avengers, Uncanny Avengers, New Avengers, The Ultimates, Squadron Supreme and A-Force. I’m going to be looking at Uncanny Avengers and All New All Different Avengers. I’m picking up more than enough Marvel titles for this to suffice.

So, I suppose I’d better mention the cast of this book. Steve Rogers: Former Captain America, he’s not an active hero in this book. The Human Torch, former member of the Fantastic 4, but with the Richards family no longer present thanks to Secret Wars and Ben Grimm chumming up with the Guardians of the Galaxy, he’s in this title. Filling our quota for mutants (the Uncanny Avengers aka the Unity Division was initially a route to peace between mutants and humans) we have the power absorber Rogue and the merc with the mouth Deadpool. In the magic-users’ category, we have Doctor Voodoo. I don’t know who he is. In the Inhumans category we have Synapse, I have no f*cking clue who she is and Quicksilver, who was retconned into being an inhuman to screw over Fox.

Before we begin in earnest, I think it also fair to look at Uncanny Avengers Annual #1. I’ll be brief, it’s rare that a series will get an issue this early in its run. But there’s a reason for it here: it’s a marketing gimmick to get people interested in the Scarlet Witch comic. Bear in mind, Scarlet Witch is not a member of the Uncanny Avengers. In fact this story centres around magic users and barely features them. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS! With that said, let’s dig into the real content.