X-Men Apocalypse: Fox Wins But People of Color Lose

May 13, 2016June 13, 2016 Valerie Complex

Don’t expect this movie to rely heavily on the source material. Director Bryan Singer presents a film that’s a hodge-podge of various stories made up by people who know nothing about the X-Men. Aside from Quicksilver (Evan Peters), Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee), and Apocalypse (Oscar Issac, doing well with whatever the hell he is given) being mildly entertaining, they can’t save the film from imploding. Everyone else is either used as filler or bores you to death with their on-screen presence. Choppy action scenes are put in place to mask the uninteresting, underdeveloped characters, cheesy dialogue, Playstation 2-quality special effects, and makeup that looks like it was bought from the bargain bin at Chapel Hill Beauty Supply. The worst part is the newcomers don’t get their chance to shine like the trailer would have you believe. Particularly the characters of color.

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Marvel, Movies, Roundtable6 Comments

NOCs of the Roundtable: Olivia Munn is Psylocke

April 15, 2015April 17, 2015 The Nerds of Color

On Monday, director Bryan Singer revealed on Instagram that he had cast Newsroom star Olivia Munn as Psylocke in the upcoming reboot/sequel X-Men: Apocalypse. And if you’re wondering, Pyslocke was previously portrayed by Mei Melançon in X-Men: The Last Stand, but everyone knows that movie doesn’t count (and after the events of the last X-Men movie, none of the other ones do either).

Due in theaters next year, Apocalypse continues the period-set aesthetic of the new X-Men franchise. While First Class was set in the 1960s and Days of Future Past in the 1970s, Apocalypse will take place during the 1980s, which is fitting since that’s the time period that saw Betsy Braddock go from a supporting role in Captain Britain to a full-fledged member of the X-Men. She’s also one of the first characters to undergo a convoluted, but canonical, race swap in the pages of the comic.

Anyway, some of the Nerds convened around the old Roundtable to talk about Olivia’s casting in the next X-Men film.

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Comics, Marvel, School of Hard NOCs1 Comment

School of Hard NOCs: X-Men #1-3

October 10, 2013April 3, 2014 Jenn

Vitals: X-Men #1-3 are the first three issues of the re-launched X-Men title, and serve as a natural jumping on point for anyone who hasn’t been reading. It made national news earlier this year for featuring the first ever all-female X-Men line-up.

Plot: We rejoin the X-Men to find that most of them are now teachers at the Jean Grey Institute for Gifted Children. Jubilation Lee, code-named Jubilee, has resurfaced as the caretaker of an adorable little baby boy and is seeking refuge in the home of her old teammates. Little does she know that she has unintentionally led one of the X-Men’s foremost foes — the sentient bacteria John Sublime who is capable of taking control of any organic being — right to the X-Men’s doorstep. It turns out that Sublime is also seeking help from the X-Men, this time to confront a long-lost evil twin, the sentient technoorganic bacteria Arkea who is capable of controlling all things technological. How does a bacteria do that? It’s a sentient bacterial cell, people. Let’s just go with it, okay?

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Comics, Guest Post, Marvel2 Comments

X-Men X-Cess: The Most Epic Picnic in All of Comics History

October 6, 2013December 8, 2014 Guest N.O.C.

Originally posted at Adam WarRock’s tumblr page.

I bought a bundle of X-Men Vol. 2 issues, 1-79, and I am going to read them all and blog about them here. Today:

X-Men #8 — Tooth and Claw
Guys. You guys. If you are around 30 years old and read comics, then X-Men #8 is a milestone in your comics life. This is the infamous X-Men picnic issue. The seminal Psylocke-in-a-bikini issue. This was one of those moments you remember forever. I have so much to talk about, that I’m basically going to dedicate a whole post to this issue. Are you ready?