Hello and welcome back to Hero Express, your stop off point for all superhero entertainment news. It has been a while since the last update and a lot of hero news has come our way so let’s crack on. Firstly, we look at what the Marvel Superheroes have been up to recently with some exciting news on the big and small screen.
Continue reading Hero Express: 1970’s Loki, Magneto/JFK Conspiracy & Suicide Squad Movie!
Now we all know Marvel’s mutants get a rough deal. Dying, getting brought back to life, having their powers stripped away and almost causing the destruction of the Earth all seem to happen on a weekly basis for these guys. So it’s nice to see that Pete Holmes can inject some humor into the X-Men world with a series of shorts from his late night talk show, called Ex-Men.
The basic premise behind this is that Professor X is cleaning house and ridding the X-Men of the more useless or flawed members. The shorts amount to Xavier, played by Holmes, calling the various mutants into his office to sack them all. So sit back and enjoy Charles Xavier in a more twisted vein than we are used to seeing, shit-canning some of our favorite heroes with absolute joy:
The full playlist is available on Pete Holmes’s Youtube page and includes Storm, Nightcrawler, and Jubilee.
My personal favorites are the Wolverine one that plays Logan as a dumb jock and the Angel sketch where Xavier cannot stop wetting himself over how awful Warren Worthington really is.
If you liked these then maybe check out Pete’s fantastic Batman parodies, which started out as a collaboration between College Humor and Holmes’s sketch comedy group Front Page Films and more recently have been incorporated into The Pete Holmes Show. Here’s a taste:
The X-Men have certainly had their share of makeovers in their illustrious career. Whether it is the yellow and black look of the Jim Lee era, the iconic retro look from the X-Men’s first appearance or even the much talked about leather clad look from the movies, they have all managed to have an impact on fans around the world. This is not even including the multiple alternative Earths that the characters have appeared in. With all these costume changes it is refreshing to see that an artist can still put their own spin on these well traveled mutants. Which is where Nate Hallinan comes into the picture (thanks to Newsarama for the information).
His take on mutants comes from a much more fantastical view point and his character designs certainly have a Game of Thrones feel to them. Here is a quote directly from Nate’s web site to show you exactly the direction he is taking.
[box_light]The Order of X is a group of ‘gifted’ individuals in the service of Lord Charles Xavier. The Order provides sanctuary and protection to individuals outcast by society due to their innate abnormalities. These people are often misidentified as monsters, demons, warlocks and witches. Only those who are accepting of the ‘gifted’ are welcome in the realm of Lord Xavier.[/box_light]
Now that has peaked your interest, have a look at the gallery of newly designed X-Men with an abridged run down of their new origins.
[box_dark]Henrick’s mind is as fierce as his appearance. Henrick was given the name “Beast” as an ironic term of endearment. He is loved by his peers and is one of most wise and trusted members of Xavier’s council. He is well educated and continues to be a scholar of many disciplines.[/box_dark]
[box_dark]The mountain of metal; Colossus. His father was a blacksmith and eventually apprenticed him in the family trade. Hard labor made Peter strong but he was always larger than the other kids. His size and strength even made certain people nervous. Others even rumored that it was ‘unnatural.’[/box_dark]
[box_dark]Scott and his younger brother were both orphans who grew up fending for themselves on the streets. The day Scott’s ability manifested he accidentally destroyed several buildings and set fire to half the village. In the chaos of everything Scott lost sight of his brother for he couldn’t open his eye without causing more destruction. Xavier, perceiving the trouble, quickly dispatched members from his order to rescue Scott.[/box_dark]
[box_dark]Jean comes from the noble family of Grey. She was a bit of a tomboy growing up. Her parents despised and discouraged her unladylike behavior, but once she developed unnatural abilities, her family feared the worse. Lord Xavier offered her parents an opportunity to provide her with guidance and protection; they reluctantly accepted.[/box_dark]
[box_dark](Kyrt V’wagnyr roughly translates from elven as Nightcrawler.) Kyrt never knew his real parents. He was found by a band of elves as an infant. They were on a twilight march, celebrating the new moon, when they found him crawling next to his basket on a riverbank. They happily adopted him seeing that he was part elf. His enchanting midnight appearance and mysterious abilities makes him highly regarded among elves. Magic runs deep in the race of elves but Kyrt’s abilities are more potent than most.[/box_dark]
[box_dark]As a young adult, Xavier met Ororo as a child on one of his quests. He caught her trying to steal his coin purse with his mind, but when he did, he saw her potential. He offered her a home where she would never have to steal again. Henrick McCoy took her in as one of his apprentices.[/box_dark]
If you liked these superb pieces of art and want to read more on how the characters were created and their full history then check out Nate’s website here, where he will be putting more character designs up in the near future. Here is hoping that he does not leave us waiting to long for them. Just to give you a taste of what is to come here is Nate’s take on Wolverine. He makes one kick ass dwarf!
On Friday Bryan Singer gave us another peek behind the curtain for his upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past movie, this time revealing a full size Sentinel, and stood beside it for scale! As we reported last week, the X-Men: Days of Future Past marketing strategy seems to be really kicking into top gear now that The Wolverine and the other main summer super-hero movies are out of the way.
The Sentinels were first introduced in The X-Men (Vol. 1) issue #14 (Nov 1965) and were created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. According to Marvel canon, Sentinels are programmed to locate mutants, then capture or kill them. The Sentinel in Singer’s picture looks to be around 13 to 14 foot tall, which certainly gives it an imposing stature, but isn’t as nearly as tall as what we are used to in the comics were they are usually depicted as being around 3 stories tall.
As for the design itself? It differs significantly from the Sentinels we are used to in the comics and is even different in design from the Sentinel you may have spotted during the ‘Danger Room’ sequence in X-Men: The Last Stand.
Personally, I’m not a fan of the new design. I don’t think it evokes the terror that a Sentinel should. I do appreciate that things have to be redesigned with the times though. I also assume that within the context of the film they will also need to look a little cuddlier, being that they are initially introduced to the public as a policing force against the mutant threat.
Now, it is important to note that on the thigh of the Sentinel it does refer to them as SNTL2, what I expect is a mark-2 design. Bryan Singer did also caption the photo on Twitter with “Here’s to the next 50 years”. I suspect then that these may not be the only Sentinels featured in X-Men: Days of Future Past. The recent viral posters also hint that they may get a little nastier.
X-Men: Days of Future Past hits theaters in the U.S.A on May 23, 2014. Let us know your thoughts on the new-look Sentinels below.
That Bryan Singer is one sneaky little bleeder. Over the past few months Singer has done a superb job at raising the excitement levels of X-Men: Days of Future Past by dropping sneaky little Tweets and Instagram shots of new characters, costumes, set design and those beautiful character posters during Comic Con.
Now the promo job seems to have set itself into viral mode with the launch of www.Trask-Industries.com. The website itself was launched a little while ago during San Diego Comic Con, but at that time there was very little up on the site. Today there seems to have been a major update that gives us our first shot of everyone’s favorite Lannister, Peter Dinklage, in full 70’s Bolivar Trask get up.
We are also treated to a great little propaganda style Trask Industries infomercial explaining how, if the X-Gene is allowed to continue propagating without limit, that homo sapiens could cease to exist by the year 2030.
The website also gives us a nifty little bit of X-history with a timeline of the Sentinel program as well as the big reveal of the Sentinels themselves.
Now, this all sets up the premise and tone of the film very nicely and obviously starts to point us towards the dystopian future that Wolverine, Kitty Pride and the rest of the X-team inhabit. I imagine that most of the material used here, or at least the premise it sets up, will be covered briefly within the opening scenes or credits of the film once it is released. In the meantime it gives us good insight into were they are going with the film. One of X-Men: First Class’ main accomplishments I feel was the tone. By the looks of things so far, Bryan Singer has really picked up on that and is stylistically aiming to conjoin the two cinematic threads.
I particularly like the ‘Mutants are the Enemy’ posters that were popping up around SDCC and on the web. which you can see more of at the link above.
There are a few things that worry me about X-Men: DOFP, though. I loved X-Men: First Class. In my opinion it was the strongest of all the X-films (I wonder how many more X-idioms I can use). It’s my opinion that the film that X-Men: DOFP bridges First Class with (X-Men: The Last Stand) is probably the worst. Singer revealed to UK magazine Empire that the future set parts take place 10 years after The Last Stand. This leaves a lot of questions to be answered, such as how Professor X is now inhabiting the body of Patrick Stewart again, and not that bloke in the bed who he ‘mind-swapped’? Also, there does seem to be a rather bloated cast. Will there be enough time to give them all the screen time they deserve and not turn it into the cameo fest that was The Last Stand.
Ultimately, this could all be explained very easily and done satisfyingly. I for one am more excited to see this and hopefully Singer and co. will pull out all the stops to avoid X-fanboy ire.
X-Men: Days of Future Past hits theaters on May 23, 2014.
X-Men: Days of Future Past has already had a somewhat impressive showing in San Diego this year. Early on we got our first look at the head of a Sentinel, and then later new character portraits featuring Bishop, which was another first look. While no panel was on the schedule, fans were hopeful for something during Fox’s time at SDCC.
Not that unexpectedly, Fox did indeed have a secret panel yesterday for X-Men: Days of Future Past. Rather unexpectedly, The entire cast from the film appeared on stage, an then held a panel. It was pretty extraordinary to see that many people on stage, and there is no doubt the fans were surprised.
Continue reading SDCC 2013: ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’ Panel!
Grizzly Bomb 