X-Men In General

<puts down Poutine>

You got something against Canadians.

I actually don't even eat poutine, even though I am canadian. Never cared for it. I just needed something to make the joke work.

Edited by HandsomeRob on Mar 28th 2024 at 8:51:04 AM

Marvel actually tried to retcon the Canadian background for Logan once he became a popular character.

So did FOX. Fortunately, the screenwriter for X-Men (2000), David Hayter refused to make that change. Probably because he's Canadian.

Good, keep the international origins.

Funny how 2 of the most popular X-Men related characters (Wolverine and Deadpool) are Canadian

<Picks up hockey stick>

There better not be anything wrong with Canadian's, or I'm gonna have to put down my timmies, come out of my igloo, mount my moose, and come down there, eh.

Also I love poutine.

Tbh though I love the face that the two most popular superheroes are Canadian, gives me a sense of pride. I really want a MCU Alpha Flight film to come out when Marvel starts doing their X-Men stuff, although hopefully they do the First Nations characters better than just being Magical Native American stereotypes. It's kind of why I like Forge a bit, although I haven't really read to much of his character. He's the tech guy of the group.

Edited by GateStarX on Mar 29th 2024 at 1:34:27 AM

It's because Wolvie got popular that Marvel initially had a problem with him being Canadian. They didn't want a popular character to be anything but a full red-blooded American. But they got over it eventually.

And then it happened again with Deadpool.

Though it was the opposite with him. His original backstory suggested he was originally from the USA, having washed out of US Army Special Forces before joining the Weapon X project. He was confirmed to be Canadian later. Though Liefield did always intend to tie Deadpool to Wolverine, so maybe he was always meant to be a Canadian too.

Edited by M84 on Mar 29th 2024 at 5:01:08 PM

It's funny how Canada in Marvel is basically Nazi Germany.

The Weapon X projects are absolutely horrific.

A real neat aversion of Canada Eh, niceness.

Wolverine himself is an aversion of that too. So is Deadpool. YMMV on how good or bad they are, but they are definitely not polite.

Though Wolverine as a child was quite polite, being raised as a privileged youth. James Howlett might have turned out very differently if Thomas and Dog Logan (his biological father and brother) hadn't taken drunken and murderous payback against John Howlett.

You know, it's kind of horrifying and sad that Wolverine still uses "Logan" as his name despite remembering everything about Thomas Logan. I guess too much has happened to him for him to think of himself as James Howlett anymore.

Of course, since self-deprecation is one of Wolverine's enduring character traits, he might not think he deserves to call himself James Howlett anymore. Going by "Logan" may be yet another way he flagellates himself.

Edited by M84 on Mar 29th 2024 at 5:31:29 PM

Just going back to Angel, given he has a very specific power, it's a shame the big role he could have taken, well, he's never really been that interesting there.

He could have been the money, could have been their Iron Man.

Instead at the start it was Charles and his home and fortune. The Hellfire Club ended up tied to Magneto more in the 80s, Sunspot has been "the rich one" more recently.

Angel moving into a more background role, providing money, tech, having government and business contacts, having to deal with the ruthlessness of that should have been something for him to slip into but other characters slipped into those roles.

Instead, damn near all of Angel's storylines keep going back to what Apocalypse did to him.

It's especially bad since he's not even the only X-Man who has done a stint as a Horseman of Apocalypse. Gambit of all people was made one. So was Wolverine.

Edited by M84 on Mar 29th 2024 at 5:34:18 PM

For all its criticisms, it's telling that X-Men Evolution is the only adaptation to avoid this issue with Jean entirely. It removed the love triangle since Logan was way too old for a teenager and kept the Phoenix stuff to a future vision Xavier had.

The first Wolverine movie even has Logan reminding Stryker that he's Canadian when Stryker pulls a "Your country needs you" line on him.

The fact he's famously played by an Australian makes it all the more hilarious.

I never did watch Evolution. I just somehow never got around to it. But yeah, I feel like the '90s cartoon and the movies tend to warp people's view of what Jean's actually like in the comics. First, she's honestly harder than people tend to think. For as compassionate as she is, she's also got a temper. (One of many things I liked about Bendis' ANXM was that he actually did show that Jean could be ruthless sometimes. Not often, but sometimes.)

Second, she's less defined by Scott and Logan, and more defined by the relationships she forms with everyone around her. For most of her history, she served as the heart of whatever book she was in. She was married to Scott so she interacted with him a lot, but Gambit and Rogue interacted a lot, too, without people thinking either was defined by it. Jean was a great team player, with plenty of great moments. It's just that the '90s cartoon and the movies overshadow that. It doesn't help that she spent so long dead after Morrison, and quite a few stories during that time treated her as being defined by men and the Phoenix.

But, again, once she came back, she immediately went into X-Men Red, doing her own thing with a neat line-up. And it wasn't really treated as her trying to define herself, it was treated as her seeing the state of the mutant world and having an idea for a way to approach some of the problems they faced.

In regards to Jackman, he once told a story about meeting this big dude who, while congratulating him on being cast as Wolverine, told him, "You'd better play him as Canadian." Just a funny story.

He was also Australian in Pryde of the X-men.

I remember that. It was such a weird but funny change.

And in the X-Men's guest appearance on Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. '80s Marvel was insistent on making Logan an Aussie for some reason (and Hilarious in Hindsight, of course).

I feel like Angel is a typical case of writers just taking a power at face value and not thinking any deeper. "He have wings so he can fly. That's it." Even without changing him much physically you could do interesting stuffs. I'm personally a fan of the "Jojo's Bizarre Adventure approach" where you stretch the meaning of a power to its limit. Angel have huge prehensile wings, you could give him a fighting style unique to him where he make use of them. Take into account some of the Required Secondary Powers required to fly really fast (like Aquaman having Super-Toughness because, being able to move and live at the bottom of ocean kinda implies he does.) and explore how he can . Heck nothing prevent any writer from going absurd with how fast he can fly.
Also, those wings *have* to be pretty strong. He could probably create shockwaves by flapping them and blast stuff up or blow away his enemies.

True, but the powers is only half the issue. The other half is that personality-wise he really doesn't have much going for him and what little he does have is done better by other characters. He has no niche or notable traits to help him feel even remotely interesting.

That's definitely a issue. I didn't mention it on my previous post to not make it too long, but Angel would need some characterization work.

Angel had a pretty good update when he became archangel, I thought.

It's why I was confused why he didn't have more opinions on Apocalypse being there.

Because no-one cared about Angel.

Sorta curious? What was the comic which turned Dracula into an x men villain that he kinda is now? I'm wondering when x men 97 would adapt it?

"It's okay, mommy. They're super heroes."

God I love Uncanny X-Force, Goddamn classic. Probably Rick Remender's magnum opus during his time at Marvel, and Jerome Opeña's art is a gold standard for the industry.

Uncanny X-Force is a modern classic in every sense. Definitely the big highlight of the Utopia era.

I keep going back to Deadpool during that run, where he's actually serious and the voice of reason. I love the meta humor and annoying jokester characterization, but I love when story's actually bring up his serious moments and moral center.