Nerd Rage: First Class
X-Men First Class was released in Theaters last night (June 3rd). While many casual movie-goers enjoyed a fun period piece with interesting characters and a fairly well-crafted story, there were many Marvel Comics fans who were about as happy as Wolverine in a bar that just ran out of beer.
To figure out why comic book fans are so upset, we must go back to the time before the “do no wrong” Marvel Studios was created. Marvel Comics didn’t print money like they today and subsequently made some very poor deals with movie studios (i.e. Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox) by selling the movie rights to several of their properties for many years. We’re still in those “years” and Marvel Studios is currently barred from making movies with Spiderman or anything termed “mutant.”
Spiderman/X-teams movies are in the hands of people who do not value the source content like the people who actually own it. Sony and FOX’s studios value money above all and while the bottom line is obviously important, it’s no excuse for deviating from the comic books so heavily.
X-Men is one of most amazing cast of characters ever created and stories about the X-Men are going to be fun simply by the nature of who they are and what their stories contain. X-Men First Class is no exception. Fun characters will give you a fun story. But Marvel Studios has proven time and again that you can stay true to the comic books and make great movies. Iron Man, made by Marvel Studios, is still regarded as the best comic book film to date by most people and not one single fan was outraged by it. Why? Because Marvel Studios VALUES the source content. They honor it. They see no reason to change the comic book canon. They craft wonderful movies using the canon. It CAN be done.
Deadpool.
Deadpool is one of most beloved characters in Marvel comics. A wisecracking assassin with healing powers and insane combat skills is a surefire win amongst males age 10-40. But in the movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine, 20th Century Fox turned Deadpool into some Baraka/teleporting/bowel movement sandwich perversion of the comic book character. Why? To help craft some meaningless story that fans are going hate/dismiss for eternity? Foolishness. In fact First Class attempts to stay truer to the X-Men films before it than the actual comics it’s based from.
X-Men First Class probably does not deserve the flak it’s receiving from diehard Marvel fans, but FOX’s unwarranted drifting from dearly-held canon deserves as much flak as possible.
Here’s a quick list of some deviations from the source material in X-Men First Class:
- The comics 1st class was Beast, Jean Grey, Iceman, Cyclops, Angel
- Banshee is Irish in the comics (with an accent)
- Sebastian Shaw’s life/death is different from the comics
- Shaw doesn’t play a role in young Erik’s life in the comics
- Xavier loses the use of his legs a different way in the comics
- Havok’s power looks completely different than the comics
- What happens to Darwin in the film does not happen in the comics
