All-purpose, running Geek thread (formerly Battlestar Galactica thread)

I feel the same way. It isn't my usual thing, either, but the trailer looks interesting and Gunn earned some trust with the Guardians of the Galaxy movies.

 

For modern fans, I think Deadpool would work just as well as Wolverine, maybe better.

 

I really don't want Avengers and X-Men sharing a movie universe. It sucks 99% of the time in the comics too.

 

How many movies do we think Marvel Studios will be churning out in coming years? While it's could be cool to see the X-Men and FF back with Marvel, Fox and Marvel were putting out 5-6 movies combined per year based off Marvel properties, but do we think Marvel Studios comes anywhere close to that? Do they stick to 2-3 a year and we get less comic book movies? Will we see more on streaming platforms, so we won't care? I want to see how many movies Marvel commits to putting out in the coming years before I get too excited about them getting certain characters back. Sure, most of what Fox did sucked, but we wouldn't have Logan or maybe not Deadpool if Fox had never gotten the rights to those characters.

 

The only real problem is that the premise of the X-Men makes a less sense in a world with other super-powered beings. Why would society hate and fear mutants, but love superpowered heroes such as the Fantastic Four, Captain Marvel and Captain America? It makes very little sense. Then again, maybe that was the point all along. Bigotry based on race, religion, gender or sexual preference doesn't make sense, either.

That said, I don't really want to see X-Men vs. Avengers on the big screen, but some interaction among the characters could be fun. Both Beast and Wolverine have had excellent runs as Avengers in the comics.

 

Yep, that's the point. Mutants and the hate of them was a metaphor for the civil rights movement, right down to Magneto being Malcolm X and Charles Xavier being MLK Jr. It didn't make sense, but neither really did hating someone for the color of their skin to the early writers. It all came down to hating someone for their DNA.

 

It makes sense, but I wonder if it is more of a No-Prize solution. For those unfamiliar with Marvel's No-Prize, it was something they did in the letters pages of their comics. I'm not sure if they still do it. If a reader wrote in to offer a solution to a possible plot hole that the writers or editors liked, they were awarded a No-Prize. (So really, nothing but a shout-out in the letters page.)

 

Stan Lee has been back and forth on whether he meant for them to be that or not, but Chris Claremont made it pretty explicit during his run, which started in the mid-1970s, he was drawing the mutants-civil rights comparison and started really making it much more explicit in the early 1980s.

 

I thought they actually did send you a "prize" of a blank postcard with a picture of the Hulk on it?
Like it's not really a prize, or "No prize."

 

I honestly don't know, but that sounds right.

 

I don't think Lee initially meant it to work as a metaphor for the civil rights movement, but he jumped on a good idea when it popped up. Claremont definitely wrote the book that way.

I was talking specifically about the stupidity of regular humans hating mutants while loving other super-powered heroes. I wonder if Lee or Claremont thought it made sense because real-world bigotry is stupid, too, or if that's just us trying to wrap our heads around a plot hole.

 

I vaguely remember some of the X-Men in the late '80s/early 1990s discussing that, wondering why the Avengers were loved when they were reviled. They've explored it to some degree -- how mutants are a step in evolution and could spell the end of regular humanity, while the others are other the peak of humanity (Tony Stark's intelligence) or the product of it (Captain America's super-soldier-serum-induced athleticism), or are simply an accident (Spider-Man). They aren't feared as greatly because they're not seen as a threat to the species like mutants are, and some mutants even make explicit their desire for homo superior to replace homo sapiens, which makes the fear even greater. In short, mutants are seen as different than other superheroes and other humans because they were born different.

And here's one interview where Lee said he was using the metaphor from the beginning. Again, he went back and forth on that, and he kinda ended up on this narrative toward the end of his life. Stan Lee on the X-Men and 1960s Marvel Comics: Lost Interview – Rolling Stone