Title: X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Movie directed by Gavin Hood; screenplay by David Benioff and Skip Woods; starring Hugh Jackman, Liev Shreiber, Danny Huston, Lynn Collins, Ryan Reynolds, Taylor Kitsch, Will I Am, Dominic Mognahan and Kevin Durand.

The first official blockbuster of the summer, X-Men Origins: Wolverine made its international debut on Friday to a bevvy of mixed expectations and reactions. Die-hard fans and the geekdom who have been following the production process of the film have not had so much to be excited about, from reshoots, to the internet leaked workprint, to a story that in no way fits the continuity of the X-verse. But on the other side of less-than-enthused fanboys (and fangirls), there was the pervasive sense of excitement, to once again see Wolverine and other mutants on screen doing their thing, in a bonafide special effects-mancandy-badassness bonanza.

So, it was with mixed feelings I went into the theater on Friday night. I told myself that even if the movie sucked on an overall movie scale, I’d still get some sweet action sequences and fights that would make it worth it (as well as the aforementioned mancandy). Would I let overall negative reviews from uptight movie critics or the lackluster fan reaction deter me? NAY! I walked into the theater with armed with popcorn, diet soda, low expectations and a defiantly hopeful mindset.

And, I can say that Wolverine was everything I expected it to be. In a cringeworthy but basically good way.

SPOILERS FOLLOW. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

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We haven’t had one of these in a while, so we decided to throw one up. Y’know. For Wolverine and all.

A few weeks ago, we stumbled across these covers over at Marvel.com. In celebration of Wolverine’s 35th anniversary, Marvel released a number of variant covers this month with depictions of Wolverine in the style of famous artists.

With that in mind, for this week’s ponderings we ask you:

Which Art Take on Wolverine do YOU Like the Best?

CAPTAIN BRITAIN AND MI13 #12 Wolverine Art Appreciation variant cover by Skottie Young in the style of Edward Gorey

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #590 Wolverine Art Appreciation variant cover by Paolo Rivera in the style of C.M. Coolidge

HULK #11 Wolverine Art Appreciation variant cover by Ed McGuinness in the style of a cave painting

UNCANNY X-MEN #508 Wolverine Art Appreciation variant cover by Laura Martin in the style of Vincent Van Gogh

SECRET WARRIORS #3 Wolverine Art Appreciation variant cover by Gerald Parel in the style of Gustav Klimt

RUNAWAYS #9 Wolverine Art Appreciation variant cover by David Lafuente in the style of Alphonse Mucha

MS. MARVEL #38 Wolverine Art Appreciation variant cover by Paolo Rivera in the style of Wyeth

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #592 Wolverine Art Appreciation variant cover by Paolo Rivera in the style of Salvador Dali

MOON KNIGHT #29 Wolverine Art Appreciation variant cover by Juan Doe in the style of Pablo Picasso

DAREDEVIL #118 Wolverine Art Appreciation variant cover by Juan Doe & Russ Heath in the style of Roy Lichenstein

GHOST RIDER #34 Wolverine Art Appreciation variant cover by Alina Urusov in the style of Japanese Woodblock

AGENTS OF ATLAS #3 Wolverine Art Appreciation variant cover by Gerald Parel in the style of Edvard Munch

X-MEN: LEGACY #223 Wolverine Art Appreciation variant cover by Morry Hollowell, using the art of Frank Miller, in the style of Andy Warhol

EXILES #1 Wolverine Art Appreciation variant cover by Jason Chan in the style of Rene Magritte

All art courtesy of Marvel.com

The summer officially kicks off this Friday with the first official blockbuster film of the season – X-Men Origins: Wolverine. And, as we both have nothing but love for Wolvie, what better way to prepare for the film’s release than talking a bit about our own experiences with the character?

Ana:

Skini.

That’s the name of the culprit friend who introduced me to Geekdom: he lent me all of his X –Men comics collection, told me about something called Dungeons and Dragons and got me to watch this TV show called Married with Children of which he had every single episode taped.

I was 15 (or *gasp* 18 years ago) when I first noticed this new guy in my classroom back in high-school. I immediately realised we had something in common that distinguished us from the horde: we both sat in the back rows because we both spent the lessons…..reading. First let me tell why this connection is so important: generally speaking, Brazilians do not read. That’s even truer to high school kids. In fact when I was 14 I was called to the school’s psychologist’s office and was interrogated about my life back home: was everything ok? Were my parents getting along fine? Was I being bullied? Why was I called to her office you may ask? Because according to her, I read too much ergo I must be unhappy. Seriously, that is the sort of mentality I grew up with. But I digress.

Back to Skini and I: we both read a lot. But whereas I read books (mostly Egyptology books – I was in my archaeological phase) , Skini read comics. I was surprised as I had never heard of these comics he was reading: X-Men. When I was child I read a lot of comics – especially Brazilian ones like Turma da Monica’s but they were for children and I had stopped reading them when I was about 10.

Skini spoke highly and enthusiastically about the X-Men and one day, curiosity spiked, I asked if I could borrow them. Silence. I could see how precious these comics were to him and these days I understand WHY: he had every single issue of the X-Men since number 1. But he brought them to me, after telling me to take good care of them (or die). And he kept bringing batches of issues over the next months and I read them all. (memory flash: He also taught me to drive in his father’ s car and on my first lesson, I nearly drove the car into a tree. Come to think of it, I think Skini had a crush on me! OMG I was so clueless in high school).

The first issues of X-Men had this formation: Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Iceman and Angel.

I loved it, even though I wasn’t crazy about the heroes themselves. I mean, Angel and Beast were mostly OK but I was thought Cyclops was a bit lame. Then there was a clear break and then new stories with a new, better formation ( I learnt later that the comics had a publishing break for a few years back in the 70s): Cyclops, Colossus, Nightcrawler and Banshee (LOVED these two) plus Storm, some oldies like Jean Grey, Angel, Beast and this new character called Wolverine.

Dear lord, it was freaking love at first sight. The character was as Bolt’s Rhino would say: FULLY AWESOME !! *takes a deep breath*

He had cool powers: strength, healing factor and the adamantium–covered skeleton with retractable CLAWS that made him near indestructible which in turn, made him such a bad-ass who was first to run into danger and sometimes he behaves like a mental berserker even though he hates it because it reminds him of his animalistic tendencies but he has a soft side as well, especially when it came to women, form his paramours to his closest friends like Jubilee and Kitty Pride for example plus he was sort of mysterious, no one, not even him knew details of his past and and and he was sarcastic, was always teasing lame-ass Cyclops and FINALLY he was, even in his comic form HOT.

Like, so hot, that Wolverine , to this date, remains the one and only draw comic book character to have ever featured in an erotic dream of yours truly (does that constitute TMI, Thea?. Oh well, too late).

I devoured these comics – Skini had also Uncanny X-men issues, X-factor and the Wolverine solo comics. There were so many great stories in them: my favourites remain The Inferno Saga and The Dark Phoenix Saga. (And then in later issues, Gambit showed up to rival my love for Wolverine but that is subject for another post, I think).

It took me MONTHS to read all the issues he had and when I was done, I started to buy them myself (lots and lots of money spent here dudes. Like, lots) and only stopped one year later, in 1993 when the horrible, horrible Fatal Attractions Saga happened. That was when Magneto removed the adamantium from Wolverine’s skeleton.

That was one of the most painful things I have ever read in my life, I couldn’t cope with it and that was the very last X-Men issue I read (I later learnt that he regained his adamantium back 7 years later). I went on with life and to university and the X-Men remained part of my teenage years. When the animated series made an appearance in Brazilian TV, I watched a few episodes but was already too old to really enjoy them. And I never played the video-games.

But then, the movie came along and HE with it.

From that first scene in the cage, I thought: OMG this is Wolverine and everything started all over again. The two first movies were awesome (despite Hale Berry and the most stupid incarnation of Rogue ever, talk about Character assassination) (the third was a piece of crap I’d rather forget about ) and now I am of course, looking forward to Wolverine: Origins.

I mean this movie is ALL about Wolverine, plus it has Gambit in it.

My tickets are secured for Saturday and I will be sitting there hoping it will be a Great Movie (whilst rooting for a Gambit spin-off).

Bring it on!

>Thea:

My love affair with the X-Men in general (and Wolverine, Storm, Gambit and Rogue specifically) began when I was in the second grade, and I was introduced to a certain animated show. X-Men: The Animated Series was my first foray into the world of the X-Men, and from the first sweet synthesized notes of the opening credits, I was hooked.

(On a side note, how badass is this intro theme? It’s so badass that no words are needed. Just a sick tune and sweet character introductions)

I loved these cartoons. I had always been a Saturday morning cartoon kind of gal, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were my cornerstone, which is a fine series in its own right. But X-Men was fascinating, different, and frankly infuriating. It was the first show I ever watched that I HAD to tune in to the next week because the show had a definite continuity, and so many “to be continued…” episodes (anyone that has seen the cartoon knows you have to be there when it starts or you might miss the “Previously, on X-Men” rundown essential to the rest of the episode). I collected toys. Trading cards. We used to “play” X-Men on the playground (when we weren’t playing Captain Planet or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I was always Storm, and I would freaking hate it when I had to be Jubilee. Occasionally I would get to be Beast, but I think this has more to do with the fact that I am a badass on the jungle gym. That’s right.).

Two men in particular caught my eye as freaking awesome: Wolverine and Gambit. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with Cyclops, but there was always something about Wolverine that I liked. Maybe because he was a hothead with awesome claws, and I like hotheads and claws. Maybe because he was short and different looking than the tall Scott and Remy; maybe because he said ‘bub’ a lot and had a cool gravelly voice. All I know is that I could not get enough of him.

Three episodes in particular sealed my love for Logan:

Out of the Past – Where Wolverine meets the changed, vindictive Yuriko (aka Lady Deathstrike) in the Morlock tunnels, resulting in heartbreak for poor Logan once again when they discover a Shi’ar ship in the sewers (eventually leading into the whole Dark Phoenix Saga, but that’s another can o worms). Out of the Past showed a different Wolverine, and a past love story that ended incredibly sadly. We’d seen him to this point in love with Jean, but always getting the short end of the stick.

Weapon X, Lies and Videotape – In which Wolverine starts to lose it mentally because of implanted memories, and Beast takes him to the government facility where the fated adamantium was grafted to his skeleton. What’s also cool about this episode was that we finally see Sabretooth in a different light (up to this point he’d been Wolverine’s enemy and they’d had their share of showdowns), as another part of Weapon X.

Lotus and the Steel – Right after Weapon X, when Wolverine completely loses it (over a picture of Scott and Jean too *ahh angsty sigh*). This is when Wolverine quits the X-Men, goes to Japan and works to establish control and inner peace. In an homage to The Seven Samurai (and The Magnificent Seven, one of my all time favorite movies period and probably why I feel so favorable towards other media that emulate the story), Wolverine intervenes to protect the villagers from the Silver Samurai and his bandits who demand tribute in return for their “protection”. And of course, Wolverine finds himself and his inner peace in the process.

So that’s where it all began. I watched all the cartoons, and to this day have every episode on crappy, pixelated recorded DVDs (so imagine my JOY when I discovered that the cartoons have finally officially been released on DVD this Tuesday! And you can watch streamed episodes for free online here). So, what else was a kid to do? As I grew older, I began to dabble in some of the original comics: The Dark Phoenix Saga, Days of Future Past (Bishop is just cool), the Age of Apocalypse crossover. And the cool thing was…I could actually follow the stories without any trouble, because I had seen them in the cartoons. To my even further surprise, I discovered the cartoons were pretty loyal to the source material. Go figure.

After a while though, and due to the fact that getting comics while you’re living in third world countries is impossible (except for some reason Duck Tales comics were everywhere in Indonesia), I kind of lost touch. Lost interest. That is, however, until this guy came along once more:

With the first film, I was head over heels in love all over again with Wolverine. Cyclops never did it for me and his lame showing in the film only reinforced my good sense as a young girl; no Gambit unfortunately; and I was upset with the casting of annoying Halle ‘I-only-got-an-Oscar-because-I-got-naked’ Berry and the underage Anna Paquin as Storm and Rogue (two of my favorite heroines). But no matter. Because I had the ultimate Wolverine (and Xavier & Magneto weren’t to bad either).

With X-2 and X-Men 3: The Last Stand, I could only grow in my appreciation and love for Wolverine. His badass factor off the charts, the comic quippy relief, the (yes I’m shallow) man-candy…who could resist? This, along with my love for the X-Men Legends videogames (which totally, totally rock) got me back into the X-Men once again, and I can’t imagine it any other way.

I started to read the comics again, picking and choosing from the morass of material – Wolverine’s Origin, Weapon X, Ultimate X-Men, eventually leading up to this blog and Ana’s and mine re-kindled love for comics, and the monthly huge dent in my wallet with current issues (most recently I’ve enjoyed Deadpool, Magneto Testament, & X-Force/Cable Messiah War).

When we heard about the spinoff film, Ana and I were ecstatic. We bonded over our ubergeekdom: LOST spoiler whoring, book smuggling, and then one day we started exchanging PMs about – you guessed it – X-Men. In particular, Wolverine and Gambit. So, when we found out that Gambit WOULD be making an appearance in X-Men Origins: Wolverine we were completely beside ourselves.

In addition to Wolvie, he was my favorite leading man in the cartoon and in the comics. I loved his Cajun accent, his charm, his head-to-head fights with Wolverine, and most of all, I loved his feelings for Rogue. Their love story in the cartoon and then later in the comics is my X-Men flagship. It’s all about Remy.

Needless to say, I’m excited for the film. Even if it sucks, which it very well could, I still get that awe and wonder at seeing the characters I love in realtime, with high budget special effects…and that’s all I could ask for.

How about you folks? Love for Wolverine, or any other X-Men? Are you excited for tomorrow? Who has their tickets?

The weekend is over, alas! But we have another shiny new stash for you to chase away the impending Monday blues…

Oooh, Pretty!

The new cover to The Dead-Tossed Waves (out next year), Carrie Ryan’s companion book to her awesome debut, The Forest of Hands and Teeth. Is it next year yet?

This Week on The Book Smugglers:

Monday, Thea serves up her review of the surprisingly excellent The Magicians and Mrs. Quent.

On Tuesday, Thea will review Magic Strikes by Ilona Andrews – one of Thea’s top 10 of 2009 reads!

And, on Friday, author Angie Fox will be stopping by to talk inspirations for her newest book The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers, sequel to her bestselling debut novel The Accidental Demon Slayer. Angie will have an awesome “Are You Part Demon Slayer?” quiz and contest, so make sure to stop by for the fun and for a chance to win the swag! The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers will be out from Dorchester on April 28.

And, Just Because…

I saw I Love You, Man this weekend (which is awkwardly hilarious, by the way), and guess what I got an eyeful of during the previews???

and

May is so gonna rock the universe.

That’s it for now…

~Your Friendly Neighborhood Book Smugglers

A couple of days ago we came across an intriguing question posed online — “What’s your Scott and Jean?”

As part of a Mega-Blog Crossover Event, the crew over at Alert Nerd posed the above question to Geeks around the blogosphere. Here’s the basic rundown:

The Background: Such an awesome theme could only have been birthed on Twitter. Simply put, when someone says “that’s my Scott and Jean,” it essentially means “that’s my geek sacred cow.” It’s the issue/coupling/whatever that you pretty much can’t discuss because you are too passionate about it and it makes you too crazy. You might hear perfectly reasonable arguments against said coupling/issue/whatever, but you cannot process them. It’s like That One Thing. It could be something like “Scott Summers and Jean Grey are supposed to be together and that is just how it is.” Or maybe “the new Battlestar Galactica does not exist for me because it is not the old Battlestar Galactica.” Or “The only correct portrayals of Batman are the ones that contain X, Y, and Z.” You get the idea. It’s your nerd mental block. Throughout the day on Monday they will be updating the Master List as the entries go up – you can read what makes people crazy HERE- The Master List

Naturally, we Smugglers were foaming at the mouth when we read this scintillating description. Although we’re really not huge Scott and Jean fans (we far prefer Scott with Emma Frost to be fair, and it’s really ALL about Rogue and Gambit for the X-Men fangirls in us), we can appreciate this theme perfectly.

In fact, when we read this post, we immediately zeroed in on our shared Geek Mindblock — it is, after all, one of the things that brought us together in the first place.

So to answer this very serious question, our “Scott and Jean” is…

Jack Shephard. The Jacksus. The Chosen Leader. He Who Walks Among Us But Is Not One Of Us. Or, more accurately: The disgustingly hairy, snivelling, episode-hogging pansyass wunderdoktor from LOST.

You know that inky feeling of darkness, that HATE with the entirety of one’s soul for a certain something? (Thea: I have this feeling primairly for sports — especially any team from Boston, i.e. the Celtics and Patriots. And USC football. GO LAKERS! GO BRUINS!) (Ana: I ONLY have this feeling for Jack Shephard. And papayas. I freaking HATE papayas.)

Well, this is exactly how we feel about The Jacksus (Jack Shephard’s true name since, like Jesus, he is the Chosen One and can Do No Wrong). Maybe there are compelling arguments for Jack as a character or as a leader (Thea: If there are, I sure as hell haven’t seen them. *snorts* Good luck trying to make those arguments, Jack-fans) (Ana: I second that) . But honestly, NOTHING could change our opinion of him.

As we’ve mentioned many times before, we met on LOST forums, and really bonded over our shared love for Skate (that’s the Sawyer and Kate ship) — but the glue that really solidified our friendship was our shared loathing and mockage of Teh Jack. Over at our main forum haunt, we even created a Jackshrine; that is, a special subforum, dedicated solely to the Awesomeness that is Jack Shephard (Thea and Ana: *snorts*).

WARNING: If you are a Jack-fan you may want to avert your eyes NOW. Seriously, do not carry on if you love the guy. You may realise you have been living a lie all these years. You have been warned.

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