Given What Disney Is Doing For Live-Action Marvel, Imagine The Possibilities With Star Wars...

When Disney purchased LucasFilm, I spoke of my lack of concern and expressed my long repressed love for Disney. My confidence in Disney's stewardship of much beloved fictional universes 

                                                  Reason For Loving Disney #2

This week Marvel, another recent Disney acquisition, announced that on top of several upcoming movies and the brand new Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D TV show they would be releasing, via Netflix, 4 more TV shows which would ultimately lead in to a mini-series named The Defenders. 

With some rather strong storylines playing out in the comic book world too (as Marvel reinvents its universe in the latest round of "Marvel NOW!" releases), Marvel is going from strength to strength.  

A lot of Star Wars fans are fearful of what may be coming and how carefully Disney will look after the franchise that means so much to them, I just need to point out the care and planning Marvel has been putting in to the creation of its "cinematic universe". Unlike Fox's handling of the X-Men franchise, Disney/Marvel has forged a consistent and high quality product that appeals to mass audiences whilst not causing the sort of fanboy tantrums (and I say that as someone who almost became homicidal when there was a brief consideration of rebooting Buffy) caused by things like... the Phantom Menace! 

Disney didn't buy Marvel or LucasFilm out of a love of Iron Man or Han Solo. They didn't do it because they felt some deep artistic need to tell stories in those various fictional universes owned by those companies. They did it to make money. But they have shown that in making very large sums of money they haven't forgotten to make a story that appeals to all the right people. 

Yes there are plenty of Disney flops and there are plenty of political reasons not to like Disney. But Marvel fans are now getting the sort of output that couldn't have been dreamed of before and I have a feeling that Star Wars fans are only a few years away from a similar tsunami (in a good way) of quality live-action stories that they have been praying for for years. 

Until they buy out the rights to Star Trek and replace Captain Picard with Mickey Mouse, Make Mine Disney!

Make Mine Marvel (Again)

DC got me back into comics. I was always a Marvel boy and had probably spent less than £50 on DC comics in 16 years of comic book buying up until 2011. And I'd drifted away from buying any comics in the few years before that. Then the New 52 happened. With the advent of Comixology and some great new continuity free jumping on points, I started buying DC comics at an unhealthy rate, which upsets me as it means I'd given the DC management exactly what they were after... a new reader who was free with his cash. I'm a sucker for every comic ploy there is (events, new #1s, reboots etc.)

Now I did also start to buy X-Men comics again but I kept my spending limited. After Marvel Now though (and with the soon to begin All-New Marvel Now, yes I'm a total sucker) Marvel is on its way back again.

DC's stuff grabbed me initially just because of the novelty factor. I'd never really read a Batman comic or a Superman comic. I mean, I had to give it a go. But gradually I've lost interest in a lot of titles I was enjoying. Whereas if an X-Men comic went through a bad stage, I'd stick with it because I simply love the characters and always want to give the writer another chance, I had no such loyalty to any of the DC lot. With the exception of Scott Snyder's Batman run (undoubtedly one of the best comics out there at the moment) many DC comics have suffered from poor writing and, recently, too many crossovers. The current Forever Evil stuff has completely passed me by, I'm just not that into it.

Meanwhile after Marvel Now, Marvel's stuff has just gone from strength to strength. I thought the X-Men were doing pretty excellently after the Schism storyline with both Wolverine and the X-Men and Uncanny X-Men Vol. 2 being great but after the start of All-New X-Men and Uncanny X-Men Vol. 3, they've just gotten even better! Sure I think the X-Men books could do with a cull (I'm pretty glad X-Men Legacy is coming to an end), but the quality of writing is just going getting better and better. And I've expanded outwards.... not just Uncanny X-Force (Vol. 1 was a tour-de-force that was very difficult to follow, but Vol. 2 is proving to be worthy of a place on anyone's pull list) and Cable and X-Force but also Young Avengers (up there with Batman in my opinion), Avengers Arena and Uncanny Avengers (I really dislike the Avengers, but all three of these titles are keeping me interested).

I'm still buying a couple more DC titles than I am Marvel but as I become ever more unforgiving with culling my pull list, I fear DC may slip back to the also ran category.

Marvel doesn't just feel like home to me, given the characters there have been ones I've grown up with, but it also feels fresh and powerful. So until DC cancel all their titles and relaunch their range in some transparent attempt to get fools like me to buy more comics, Make Mine Marvel!

Will X-Men: Days of Future Past Manage To Confuse The X-Men Movie Canon Even More?

So...

When X-Men: First Class came out, it seemed to be a complete reboot of the franchise. Surely it couldn't be anything else given the many conflicts it had with the original X-Men movie trilogy. At the time IGN made a fantastic Youtube video pointing out the problems...



Well now we've got the first footage from Days of Future Past, and I'm starting to wonder just how much more confusing things are going to get.



Of course this movie includes (well at least I hope it does!) time travelling mayhem which almost certainly means that on top of any "canon" confusion we have, we'll have a whole bunch of new confusion too.

But where does Storm fit in to all this? An adult in the first trilogy and a child in First Class, we have Halle Berry returning as grown up Storm. Is she from the future? Does it matter? It is obvious the writers are just going to write what ever works best, canon be damned. But for fanboys like me, and I'm not suggesting writers write for us fanboys alone!, if can be a little annoying.

Wolverine appears too... which furthers the already existing continuity problems.

We'll know more on Tuesday when the first full trailer will appear! Am I excited? HELL YES!!

Jurassic World: What We "Know" So Far

I've been excited about Jurassic Park IV since forever. It has spent so long in development hell that, after it was delayed from 2014 to 2015, I simply shrugged my shoulders and ignored it all as, to be perfectly honest, my Jurassic Park loving heart couldn't bear the prospect of another failed attempt.

But now my Google Alerts are coming thick and fast, choke full of casting news and excitement.

So what do we know?

Jurassic Park IV has been re-titled as Jurassic World. Whilst my ever dinosaur hungry brain hopes this means it'll be a (better executed) take on World War Z with dinosaur outbreaks around the world, I suspect we'll be looking at a "Jurassic World" park akin to Disney World (with awesome dinosaurs so about 10 times better). This also fits in with Sam Neill's comments that it'll be a "total re-jig". Some have taken those comments to mean it'll be a reboot or remake. I'd say we are looking at a soft reboot, keeping what happened before but starting off somewhere completely new (and probably in the USA rather than Costa Rica). I.e. Jurassic Park for a new generation but not destroying the "canon" (little though there is of it!).

It is currently due for release June 12, 2015 (just before my birthday so please keep to this people!!), and will be directed by Colin Trevorrow (who is also co-writing the remake of Flight of the Navigator, so if he messes either up he'll be the subject of some serious Fanboy Jae Rage!). He's made comments suggesting there will be a super fantastic new dinosaur. Though I think the Spinosaurus killing a T-Rex scene in JPIII was a step too far, I'm totally up for seeing what wonderful prehistoric creature they bring to the screen.

There are plenty of rumours over whether Sam Neill or Jeff Goldblum will return (personally I'd love to see Laura Dern's Sattler come back, she was a damn cool character in the first novel and Laura Dern gave her some strength in JP but she didn't get enough of a chance to shine). But we are starting to get some relatively firm news over which new actors will be joining the fun.

Ty Simpkins, of Iron Man 3 fame, appears to have cast which keeps in with the tradition of children among the main characters. Rumours have appeared suggesting Josh Brolin, Idris Elba and Jake Johnson have also been approached. With the male leads in hot contention, there's little news on any actresses as yet. I'm hoping this means LAURA DERN.

A boy can dream...

For The Love Of Stephen King

It isn't cool to like Stephen King. Even he has a bit of sense of humour about his reputation, saying in the foreword to Bag of Bones:

"I am the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and Fries"

But I have always loved his work. When I say always, I'm talking about from my very early teens. I started reading "grown-up" books when I was about 9 or 10. I remember devouring Jurassic Park in the weeks before its release. I must have been no older than 12 when I read my first Stephen King.

I always want to say that the first Stephen King book I read was "It" but I know that is just my traitorous mind desperate to create a narrative with "It" (my favourite book) at the centre. If truth be told it was probably Salem's Lot or Pet Sematary that I read first (the thought of either always brings to mind the smell of a musty old book, mainly because I mainly read second-hand, quite unloved books when I was a kid).

As neither of those books are in my very own "Best of Stephen King" countdown I'm not sure what made me continue to read his stuff. Perhaps it was just a childish glee at reading "forbidden" books that kept me going.

When I was about 14 I had a few days off school with the flu. With Alanis on in the background I devoured "The Tommyknockers" and I think that was when I fell in love with King. My other half has said in the past that he can't read King because King can spend 12 pages just describing a chair in a room, with a detailed history of everyone who has ever sat on it. This is, of course, somewhat of an exaggeration but the truth is that King does give life to characters, buildings and objects that might not seem all that important. He makes them real. He gives them a history.

In "It", for example, Dorsey and Eddie Corcoran's lives (character's who really only needed to die) are fleshed out to point where you feel like you understand Eddie and feel genuine sadness when he is murdered.

Of all the authors I've read (and I did get over my obsession eventually and read authors other than King, starting slowly with Dean R. Koontz and then heading out in ever increasing circles until I found myself miles away from the safety of the horror section in Waterstone's) King seems to "get" the "inner voice" of his characters. Their motives, their obsessions, their quirks and their inner darkness (and inner light) are spot on for how I see people act out here in the real world. His exploration of the things people do but never talk about (sexual exploration, spiteful little acts of revenge or hate etc) ring so true. His grasp of human nature is second to none.

His heroes are always flawed. And sometimes things get complicated. The way the people of Haven react to Ruth Merrill's inability to fully convert into a Tommyknocker and her reaction in turn to them is heartbreaking. She sacrifices herself to warn the world of the horror that awaits, but it is so much more complex than that.

His writing is better when it is constrained, I'll admit. His short stories (for instance the recent excellent e-book Mile 81) are sometimes so good that I actually start to ache as I near the end.

But what I really love, and identify with, in his books is the yearning for things that are gone. He truly captures both the pain of having a loved one die and the longing for a past that can never be relived. This sense of yearning that prevades many of his books is what really dovetails with my own feelings (given I live half in the past).

Stephen King's work might be considered populist guff worthy only of the proles. But Hell, I'm happy to be a prole if I get to spend some time with the sort of people who populate the works of King. Good but flawed people, with histories and prejudices. Dolores Claiborne, Jake Epping and Ben Hanscom are the sort of people I wouldn't have minded having a drink with.

THE 50th Anniversary Of The Year Draws Near

Doctor Who? Hell no. That is in November! I'm referring to an equally momentous Golden Jubilee marking 50 years since Stan Lee and Jack Kirby published the first issue of The X-Men.

I got into the X-Men around the time I got into Doctor Who. All my friends at school were collecting the Fleet X-Men card sets and, being easily lead, I soon joined them. I'd seen the X-Men cartoons, of course, but it was really those card sets that started the real love affair. The sheer diversity of characters appealed to me and it wasn't long before I'd discovered Whatever Comics in Canterbury.

And thus an on again, off again relationship began. I went through periods of devouring X-Men comics, old and new.

There is no point in pretending that the "mutant coming out" stories and the "oppressed minority" subtexts didn't appeal to me greatly. And the characters were interesting and easy to fall in love with. The Beast and his sarcasm but underlying deep and powerful love of science and mankind. Storm and her thoughtful nature and powerful anger. How could you not love them?

Right now, in its 50th year, X-Men is having one of its best runs yet. Wolverine and the X-Men, though slightly knocked off course by the AvX summer event last year, has refound its feet and is back to being hilarious and quirky. All-New X-Men and Uncanny X-Men have taken off brilliantly and I can't wait for the next issue of each. Bring the original 5 X-Men forward in time to see what they've become was an excellent way of exploring the original characters in a new and interesting way. Plus next year we have Days of Future Past coming out in the cinema which will be something to behold.

As we prepare for the 50th Anniversary spectacular story "Battle of the Atom" (though I'm slightly disappointed the future X-Men featured arent't the X-Men 2099, missed opportunity [especially as Spider-man 2099 is back in continuity]) I'd just like to say THANK YOU to everyone who has made the X-Men such a fantastic franchise, full of rich characters, interesting stories and excellent analogies for modern day issues.

Losing My Faith (In Doctor Who)

I've been a Doctor Who fan since the early 1990s, which was an odd time to become one given it was on a hiatus that seemed like it'd never end. I've loved it in all its form since; the New Adventures, the TV movie, BBC Books, Big Finish and New Who. I've enjoyed it even when I've not liked the Doctor (number 9) AND the companion (Rose Tyler). The writing has always kept me interested.

I liked Amy and Rory enough that last series I overlooked how convoluted and forced the series 6 arc felt. And now I like Clara as a character. She's bubbly and just mad enough to fit Matt Smith's Doctor. But I'm absolutely not interested in her backstory which appears to be serving as this series' arc. And to make matters worse, the individual episodes are suffering from what, in my opinion, seems to be some of the worst writing/plotting since the series returned.

Last week we saw singing and a leaf defeat a "God". Yes. Singing. This week we had some fantastic moments with an Ice Warrior stalking a Soviet sub but the ending again fizzled out. I didn't even enjoy the Christmas special. The series feels childish, in a way it hasn't since... well since forever. Even when the series was made for children it seemed more mature than it does at the moment.

And thus I've made a horrific discovery... I no longer look forward to episodes. Oh I still watch them, 20 years of fandom doesn't just disappear over night. But I'm pretty depressed that something I've loved for a very long time is just no longer doing it for me. Maybe I've just moved on.

Game of Thrones on the other hand...