Marval Movie

Behold, I teach you the superman: He is this lightning, he is this madness!
-Frederich Neizche, Thus Spake Zarathustra

It's hard being a teenager. You have all these problems and responsibilities, you have to balance your social life with your academics as well as decide what you want to do with your life.  Just imagine if you had to add crime fighting to the list.

After the third Sam Raimi film it was said that there was going to be a forth Spider-man movie. Two years past no news about it, then another year and no news, then I learned that Spider-man would get rebooted. Spider-man 3 was very cluttered and messy so it was probably right for the series to have a break and get rebooted, all be it a bit fast.

This new Spider-man is played by Andrew Garfield, a good choice, he looks like a Peter Parker with an innocent face and a head of brown hair and he plays him less like a nerd and more like a rebel with a chip on his shoulder (a performance that I feel will connect with more a the youths of today than the more stereotypical comic nerd).  I couldn't help but noticing that he takes off the mask very frequently throughout the movie, there isn't a real reason for it except that Andrew Garfield is a very hansom man and they wanted the audience to be aware of that fact.

One choice that I knew I'd have some disagreements with in the movie is the inclusion of his wed-shooters. I always thought that Spider-man just made the webbing straight from his wrists and when I learned about the shooters I thought "...um... OK?". It always seemed unnecessary, think about it. If Peter Parker could actually make these devises then surely he wouldn't have any financial troubles, but there here and there's nothing I could do about it so what the hell. But in the action sequences they do use the webbing in unique ways that we haven't seen in the other Spider-man films so that's a bonus.

The love interest is not Mary Jane but Gwen Stacey played by Emma Stone, as a very quick smart and of course very attractive fem-me fatal as must be in these movies. Gwen Stacey is plucky, spirited and so smart that she is an intern at a super fancy science lab, she is clearly a fantasy rather than a reality but she plays her well enough so that we can kid ourselves.

One of the big merits that I give this movie is it's representation of Flash Thompson (Chris Zylka), here he is not just a cardboard cut-out of generic soulless school bullies, he doesn't obsessively torment Peter Parker, he has humanity and after Peter suffers frrm his tragedy he goes easy on him and shows sympathy. This is one of the best representations of the character, even though there's not much competition.

In the directing chair is Marc Webb (heh-heh Webb), who's only other feature film is 500 days of Summer (no I haven't seen it), he brings more of a real feel to the characters and situations. These aren't exaggerated archetypes they are more pointed to reality, which is the way to handle live action superhero movies (I feel).

This movie seems to take a page from Batman Begins.  It takes it's time with telling the origin story which helps to flesh out the characters and their motives. As well as this it has a theme that runs through the story and have something for the pendekar to tackle, in this movie it's secrets. Spider-man's mask covers his whole face which was unheard of when he first appeared and it shows that he is hiding something.

Rather than the big smooth swooping shots that were in the Raimi movies, when Spider-man swings the camera is closer and shakes a little as if there's a camera man also swinging behind him. The costume was something that I wasn't enthusiastic about when I first saw it but it grew on me the more I saw it, it's still Spider-man just altered to distinguish itself from the other movies and that's good.

The Amazing Spider-man grounds itself more than the more fantastical Raimi movies and it learns from the successes and failures from the superhero movies to deliver a more than well rounded package, not as good as Batman Begins but better than the Hulk. Until now I would have said that Spider-man 2 was the best Spider-man movie but now I'd say its a tie with this movie, both excellent and true to the spirit and feel of the character.

Rating: 3 1/2 stars out of 4

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein is the book that started it all, there were of course other fantasy books and more that an abundance of stories and floklore but The Hobbit is the one that started it as big news and really brought together a whole group of people together, so technically you could say that this book started the Nerd culture.

The book starts with Bilbo Baggins living out his comfortable little life in the Shire under his Hobbit hole, every once in a while he has a party and often entertains quests, but most days he just sits outside and enjoys a warm peaceful breeze while smoking his pipe. Until one day when a mysterious figure arrives and offers Bilbo the chance to go on an adventure.  This is of coarse Gandalf "The Wondering Wizard", Bilbo is less than enthusiastic to go on an adventure but he still invites Gandalf to return for some supper later on.  When later on does come there is a knock on the door but on the other side it is not Gandalf but a pair of Dwarfs, and then another, then another, before there are thirteen Dwarfs in total.

While the Dwarfs and later when Gandalf finally appears it is learned that the Dwarfs need a burglar and Gandalf suggested Bilbo, because he new the Took side of his family (who were adventurers, and thinks that there may be some of that spirit left in Bilbo).  The journey must be taken across the land to the misty mountains to the great chambers where there was a great city of Dwarfs but now the Dragon Smaug has taken over and turned the entire mountain city into his personal nest, where he hordes the treasure all for himself. They need to sneak in and take a part of the treasure and if things go really well they'll find a way to kill the Dragon and reclaim the entire cities fortune.

The use of the thirteen Dwarfs seemed unnecessary to me, I think Tolkien really had about six dwarfs with personalities in mind, but he thought for the slaying of a Dragon they might be a bit shorthanded so he doubled their numbers by making every Dwarf a twin (There must be a sever case of nepotism running around the Dwarf kingdom).  You don't really feel that you know the Dwarfs, only by their stereotype, there's a fat one the young ones the tough one. You do, I suppose get a feel for the leader Thorin, a Dwarf descended from greatness and seeks to claim his birthright.

One of the most interesting notes to make about the book is the writing style, Tolkien was an English professor while he was writing the Hobbit so he was naturally an expert on the way things are written, but he is surprisingly defiant on the mainstream way in which most books are traditionally written.  There is actually very little description of the environments and the characters, when we meet Gollum the only description is that he has big round eyes, long fingers and raggedy thin hair, the rest is about the mood, obrolan and the scenario that the characters are in.

The Hobbit is not as big and as expansive as the Lord of the Rings and there's less an enfasis on the fights, although there are a few fight scenes, the Hobbit is more about relying on your wits than anything else so often Bilbo gets out of tricky situations and comes to the rescue by being smart and not just by being the better swordsman.

Tolkien spent virtually his whole life building up the world of Middle Earth, ever since he joined an English club in his teenage years where he first started developing the Elvish language he had been slowly but surely adding to the world and all its complexities. There are things about genres that are virtually requirements for them to work Science Fiction needs to be reasonably fees-able, Comedies need to make you laugh Fantasies need a world that seems like it could exist.  The whole point of Fantasies are to transport you to a whole new world that is not the one that we inhabit and it needs to have a function and a method of the way things work so that we except that they are real and we can become invested in them. Middle Earth is a place with a history and a layout that we become familiar with and we learn to know the people and can see parallels to our own world in them. The Elves are white collar, the Dwarfs are the working class and so on.

One thing that Tolkien injects into his work the most is off coarse himself, while reading you get a sense that Tolkien greatly enjoys a good warm meal, and a comfortable room heated a roaring fire and off coarse tobacco.

It is said that big things start small and that every adventure starts with that first step, Hobbits are very small and Bilbo hadn't taken many steps outside his own patio, but he went on to do great things and was the start of something much bigger than anyone could have guessed.  The Hobbit is a book that takes you places and gives experiences and makes you want to go places and see sights.

Rating: 4 stars out of 4

"If you have nothing to say then don't write, go out and live. see the world, get your heart broken"    

-Neil Gaiman

On the Road is the story of people, places and problems that follows some that are more flawed that others and their struggles through life and the truth of their own imperfections.

The film starts in 1947 and gives us Sal a young twenty-something man living in San Fransisco who surrounds himself with aspiring writers who have Allen Ginsberg aspirations, so does Sal.  Sal is played by Sam Riley, a very good as well as an underused actor, but when Sal actually sits down to write (possibly the next great American novel) he just cant (haven't we all been there) so he hangs out with his friends who philosophies and eventually introduce him to Dean Moriarty (Garrett Hedlund), a hansom charismatic man who seems so deep and can get any girl (or guy) he wants, and does.

One of the girls is Marylou played by Nasrani Stewart, she is a shaky, misguided girl who follows her heart and instincts more than her brain, for better or worse. I never had  a duduk kasus with Nasrani Stewart but here I admire her, she has to do some pretty extreme stuff that pushes her beyond the bad reputation from the Twilight Saga and gives her a position to a brave daring actor.

The movie is shot very lovingly like something that you imagine a John Steinbeck novel translation into film would be like, there are a lot of wide country areas, that span from weather, to season to city and they are all captured very well. On the Road is nothing but a hansom movie to look at.

The movie is adapted from the book, by the same name, by Jack Kerouac.  The book is on the list of 100 greatest English language novels of the 20th century so naturally a movie adaptation is a big deal. I haven't read the book but from what I understand I would enjoy it, the screenplay was written by Jose Rivera who has a lot of work under his belt (mostly plays) and he delivers a very unique script that is both colorful and somber and focuses on the characters and all their complexities.

One of the biggest merits I give the movie is that it has A) assembled an all star cast that also makes each star memorable, not just a simple walk by cameo that you instantly forget about when there gone B) Every actor has to do some pretty gutsy stuff that most actors I would think would shy away from whether it be reveling themselves, doing or even saying some pretty intense material that left me feeling satisfied.

One of the celebrity cameos that stick out to me the most is Viggo Mortensen as Old Bull Lee, he plays a more mature poet-like character that, unlike Dean could be the real deal and who seems to have reached a William Burroughs state in his existence with a comfortable house and a gun at the ready whenever he needs it.

On the Road captures a sense about experiences and life in one neatly wrapped package that will stick with you, the characters may be a little pretentious but the movie is self aware of that and it also has guts, I spoke about The Rum Diary and how that movie didn't have the guts to really show the material that was more necessary to the story well this does, this is one of the most daring films Ive seen in the theaters and will most likely see all year.

Rating: 3 1/2 stars out of 4

It is my personal opinion that High School is more of a right of passage than any kind of educational system. If you can make it through the four or five years that it takes to get out of it without failing every subject and/or having a complete breakdown then that's an accomplishment.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower shows High School as a darker-place than has ever been displayed before on film, it shows how terrible the students can be and the pressures of just being yourself.

The film has Charlie (Logan Lerman) a nervous, smart teenager who is just starting High School.  He also has a condition that he takes a little medication for, the movie never states what his condition is and if its real then I don't know about it.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower was a book before it was a film (nothing new there) but this time the author of the book, Stephen Chbosky also is the writer and director of the film, that's different. Apparently he couldn't get the film made when he started out so he wrote the book and when Hollywood came knocking he insisted that he also be the Director. Chbosky doesn't offer much visually as a Director but his writing and his ability of working with actors to bring out some great lively performances is some great stuff and puts him in a high place of talented Directors.

Soon Charlie meets Patrick (Ezra Miller) an incredibly funny, witty senior in his class who is probably my favorite character. Patrick is a great character and cements Miller as a top notch talent who tackles comedy, drama as well as gets a chance to put on the leggings and does his best Tim Curry impression in Rocky Horror Picture Show and as a huge fan of The Rocky Horror Picture Show I had some big standards and he delivered in spades. Charlie then meets Patrick's stepsister Sam (Emma Watson) who when we first see her appears to Charlie as an angelic figure to shine a light to Charlie in this dark time.

Patrick and Sam serve as Charlies  guardians, or pillars that keep him from sinking too deep into the darkness of his condition, they talk, make jokes and listen to "good music." One of the best scenes is when there driving home and Sam hears a song on the radio that they've never heard before and they take a ride through a tunnel and Sam stands on the back of Patrick's truck and takes a pose that is reminiscent of The Titanic. The song they listen to is David Bowie's Heroes.

Anybody who tells you that High School is "the best time of your life" or "these are the best days of our lives", then they're talking shit and if High School to them was the best time of their lives then who the fuck cares what they think.  What the fuck does it matter if you were popular in High School that's a phase and life gets better after High School, if High School is as good as it gets then by God strike me down now because that's one fucked up, miserable life.

The cast is one of the best things about Wallflower, there are some celebrity cameos that only serves to enhance the experience. There's Tom Savini as a witty arts and crafts teacher and Paul Rudd as Mr. Burton who helps and encourages Charlie through his time at school by giving him books to read and write about. There's also Mae Whitman as Mary Elizabeth a Buddhist Punk rocker (yes that is a walking talking contradiction) who serves as Charlies first girlfriend, even though hes less than enthusiastic about the idea.

Perks of Being a Wallflower is a film that captures the truth about the the world of High School with all the trials and tortures that come with it and how that if you have at least one really good friend then this wont be so bad and if you have more than one then you may just have a good time.

Rating: 3 1/2 stars out of 4

Alfred Hitchcock stands through time as one of the greatest Directors in all of history his grasp of storytelling through the language of film is unparalleled and always to the end he was coming up with new ways to tell his dark stories and there are fewer darker stories than the movie Psycho.

By 1959 Hitchcock had come out with Vertigo and North by North-West (both great movies) but it was speculated that Hitchcock had become predictable with his plot and formulas, Hitchcock the great innovator had become repetitive and needed a new project that would revitalize the Director.

When Hitchcock chose Psycho (based on the book by Robert Bloch by the same name) as his next project Paramount refused to financially back the movie so Hitchcock had to dip into his own pocket and back the movie himself. Hitchcock was always the innovator and with receiving criticism that he was predictable and over the hill, must have been a sting that he couldn't abide. With a tighter budget than Hitchcock had had for the last few projects, he had to turn down the opportunity for color and shoot in Black and White so that we get one of Hitchcock's most marvelous and enduring visual films.

The movie starts with Marion (Janet Leigh) and her lover Sam (John Gavin) in bed together while they talk about their tragic situation, Marion is hopelessly in love with Sam while Sam has inherited his fathers debt and needs to keep up with his ex-wife's alimony and all he has is a little hardware store to keep his head above water.

Marion then goes back to work at some kind of dealership, where they have a new client. This guy is a cowboy hat wearing, flirting showoff who is making a big deposit, in cash. Marion is supposed to put in the bank but then if she did do just that then we wouldn't really have a movie would we. Marion takes the money for her and Sam and makes a break for California.

While trying to make the drive to Sam Marion has to pull over and take a nap, which leads to a reasonable policeman making the necessary enquirers. One of the longest lasting Hitchcock cliches is the huge paranoia of the police due to a traumatic childhood experience. The policeman is shot in a looming, imposing closeup with dark shades that block out his eyes and this may be Hitchcock blocking out the police mans very soul.

While trying to make it to Marion has to pullup in The Bates Motel where she finds an empty Motel a house that stands darkly looming behind it with a figure of a woman in the window. Then comes down Norman Bates, played by Anthony Perkins. The Bates Motel is a real living building, made for the film that is just outside of Hollywood and still stands to this day.

Anthony Perkins is one of the great examples of perfect casting, he is handsome enough and makes all the correct gestures as to what people are meant to do is social situations but during the conversation between him and Marion, you can see beneath the surface something brewing. Constantly during their conversation it always goes back to Bates mother, all he really has is his stuffed birds, they are harmless but they are positioned ready to pounce on their prey, Marion is in danger the birds subliminally make the audience aware of that fact.

Janet Leigh meets her fate with one of the most parodied, recognizable scene in all of movie history where a dark silhouetted figure swipes away the shower curtain and stabs Marion to death. The scenes genius works by only suggesting the nudity and of her being stabbed. In fact, there is nothing shown that is indecent, you only see what you would see walking on a beach. The Black and White works better than color would have ever worked because of the blood, really they used chocolate syrup for what gets pored down the drain but in the confines of the movie the Black is more striking and effective than if they would have used fake blood.  One of the problems with the scene is that it is so well known and as soon as Marion steps into the shower and we see the water running we can set our watches to the scene and are thinking less about the incredibly well put together montage that took the crew seven days to shoot, the Looney Toons or The Simpsons is running through our heads.

This scene is what shocked audiences to their core in 1960, they went to a Hitchcock movie, saw a Hitchcock girl up on screen and then to see her brutally killed off at the hour mark with forty minutes left of the film to go they must have been near traumatized. Interesting fact in the shot where the camera zooms out from Marion's dead eye, Alma Hitchcock, Alfred wife of over forty years and filmmaking partner took one look at that shot and the first thing she said was "you can see the pulse on her neck", Hitchcock was then found in a bit of a sad state when he said "she hates the movie" only proving that he valued her opinion above all else.

After the scene, Norman has to clean up for his mother and dispose of Marion's body. The scene plays through in meticulous attention to detail with Norman cleaning up the body, the blood, checking the draws for anything she might have left, flushing the toilet (which is the first toilet flush in the history of the movies). It is theorized that the audience naturally gravitates to whoever is onscreen even though Norman is cleaning up after a wrongful a murder we seem to want his to clean up every last piece of evidence. Eventually, he gets the forty thousand dollars that are wrapped up in a newspaper so he has no idea what he had in his hand and drives Marion's car into the swamp.

The music is by Bernard Herman one of the great Hitchcock collaborators, much like he was associated with working with James Stewart or Cary Grant, behind the scenes Hitchcock would work with Herman to produce some of the most recognizable music in the movies. A good movie theme is something that works to strengthen the movie by playing the appropriate type of music relevant to the situation and works to heighten the situation. Also the level of how recognizable the theme is a key factor, the music has to be something that you recognize easily. A great theme is something you hear and you know where it's from and you think of the great scenes that they are played over.

Another one of the continuous reoccurring themes in Hitchcock movies was the mother, the ever-present, ever domineering mother that kicks their child while their down. Psycho may have the ultimate example of this, with one of the most controlling of all mother in any Hitchcock or even movie in general.

The killing of Marion also led to Hitchcock making another very bold crucial decision, he would insist that the theater is closed to anyone who was late to the showing of Psycho. There would be posters with Hitchcock with his finger on his watch with the slogan "no one...but no one...will be admitted to the theater after the start each performance". Hitchcock had already gambled a lot on the movie and now he was denying a portion of the audience that might turn up late and probably cut some of the total box offices, but this only served to entice audience members to come and see why they must not be late for this film particularly. This was nothing less than a stroke of genius for the film's marketing.

Being that Hitchcock made Psycho without the studio's backing and therefore without having to make the film according to its approval of ethics and conduct Psycho may stand as the only pure, one hundred percent Hitchcock film where he never had to pull his punches and show and deal with the subjects that fascinated him.

After Marion's death, the movie refocuses to Sam, Marion's sister Lila (Vera Miles) and a private investigator Aborgast (Martin Balsam) who is searching for the money. His investigation, of course leads his to the Bates Motel where he is too good at his job and he meets the same fate as Marion, but not before calling Lila and telling her where he is and that he's going to investigate.

Throughout Psycho there is always a feeling that the characters are in a traditional Hitchcock movie they act as though Marion has run off with the money and is planning to run away with her lover, or her and Norman Bates are in cahoots, or that Norman took the money from Marion because he wants to get out of his dead-end business and start  a new one with his newly acquired money. Little do they know that what lies beneath is so much darker and twisted than what they could have possibly predicted.

Sam and Lila also work their way to the Bates Motel and there the truth is eventually revealed, there is no longer a Mrs. Bates or more accurately as the psychologist very neatly explains to us that there is no longer a Norman Bates but now Mother has taken over and Bates ever since the day he killed her has been acting out his mothers wishes to punish her son for his sins.

Eventually, the car gets pulled out of the swamp like the ugly truth emerging into the light. Hitchcock gambled and he won big time, Psych only cost around eight hundred thousand dollars to make and brought in forty million a huge success. Nobody ever questioned Hitchcock as a master ever again, he went on with whatever project he wanted and gained immortality and one of his crowning achievements. After all who else could have made Psycho than Alfred Hitchcock one of the most artistic, fully realized Psychos in history.

Legends are a tricky thing to really nail down in terms of portrayal's and performances. The legend that is the sixteenth president of the United States of America, Abraham Lincoln has been something that's been hard for people to get through the myth and see the man.

The story of Lincoln takes place during the American Civil War and Lincoln and his secretaries are trying desperately to get the thirteenth amendment passed. The thirteenth amendment would abolish slavery and according to Lincoln and his administration this would end the Civil War, they hope that they can get the bill passed before peace is declared so that the slaves can go free, only twenty votes stand in their way.

When thinking of great Lincoln performances I think of Henry Fonda in Young Mr Lincoln, as a man of unmatched wit, charisma and great modesty. I never thought about it until Grace Randolph pointed it out but Abraham Lincoln wasn't alive when there was film or audio recording technology, seems obvious but what this means is that nobody really knows what Lincoln moved or sounded like. Daniel Day-Lewis makes a Lincoln that is real and realized and well researched. Day-Lewis Lincoln is a little more tired and aged than we've previously seen him in other interpretations, Day-Lewis is slow-moving, hunched over and has a bit of a wheeze to his voice. Who would have guessed that it would take an Irishman to play one of Americas greatest icons.

Steven Spielberg is as everyone knows an American film-making living legend, so maybe he was perfect to make a movie about another American legend. Spielberg is typically known for spectacle and his sentimentality, here are neither of those qualities. Spielberg is always grounded and restrained while shooting Lincoln, his mastery goes into the setup of the scenes and the actors and characters, there hasn't been a Spielberg movie like this since The Color Purple.

Tony Kushner delivers a screenplay that is rich with wit and heart but still always sees the characters as real people first more than anything else. The screenplay is partly based on Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin and it focuses on the politics and how Lincoln would always bend (but never break) the law to get his vision of justice to the people. Kushner has written mostly plays and it shows with long dialogue sessions that hold on the actors, it takes a special type of actors to hold the audience attention through those type of long shots and the cast of Lincoln hold and sucks us in to the scenes like magic.

To some this film might be considered "slow" and indeed one of my friends said it was before I saw the movie. The movie is not slow its perfectly passed, I fear that this may be because modern movie audiences are becoming more and more impatient and find it impossible to get engaged in obrolan without an explosion happening every fifteen minutes. But I myself was engaged and payed attention through all the dialogue sessions.


The cast is, of coarse, top notch. Tommy Lee Jones plays Thaddeus Stevens as a radical Republican who wants the thirteenth amendment to be passed with fury. A note to make about Tommy Lee Jones is that whenever I see him it always seems like he's saying "Hello I'm Tommy Lee Jones!" he never disappears, even a little, but still he is poised with the presence and the voice of a true star. Joseph Gordon Levitt as Lincoln's son who has his own goals and agendas in his life is well played but I had some trouble accepting that the two were father and son.

One goal that every movie about a real person should accomplish is that by the time the audience leaves the theater then they should feel as if they know the title character. I felt that I knew Lincoln, a great man who was more morally high and dignified than any-other man he was surrounded by or would be for many other years to come and still saw every as an equal, regardless of their race color or creed.

The movie Lincoln sees through the the legend  of Lincoln and shows us the man of Abraham Lincoln. The rest belongs to history.

Rating: 4 stars out of 4

Zombies are all the rage these days, not even since that days of George A. Romero have the undead been so popular, I suppose Zombies have never really gone out of fashion but still there popularity now is bigger than ever with movies, comic books, video games and the hit HBO show The Walking Dead. There just seems to be something about this generation and a horde of undead flesh eaters (God that's depressing).

Warm Bodies is the story of a Zombie apocalypse world where its exactly what you'd expect, destroyed cities, Zombies roaming once filled places like shopping Malls and Airports. Then we meet our main character a Zombie who's name he cant remember but he's  pretty sure that it began with a R (so that's what we'll call him). He just wanders around like all the other Zombies but he also has a few deeper thoughts running through inside his head, like wheres he going with his life?

Later we meet Julie (Teresa Palmer) the daughter of the leader of the last human survivors, here dad is played by John Malkovich (yeah!). Shes a good Fe-Male character who's strong and fun. Eventually Julie and R encounter each-other, some Zombies get their heads blown off and some humans get eaten, but the sight of Julie looking attractive with a shotgun in hand, gets R's blood pumping (literally). I have to wonder, we learn that the Zombie apocalypse has been going on for eight years, so no young Zombie has ever encountered a pretty human?

The movie is based on the book by Isaac Marion of the same name. The idea alone of a romance between a living human and a zombie is pretty original and refreshing but can it be pulled off right was the question? Yes, this is a fun movie and it serves well to be played out by two great talents. There is also even more unique touches added to the material, apparently when Zombies eat a brain they get that persons memories and being that Zombies cant sleep or dream they really want to eat some brains.

I dont usually say things like this but Nicholas Holt is a STAR! He is a great talent that has a lot to offer and I'm sure will go on to do great other things. He is so likeable and capable with the material that he's given, but also generous, giving the other actors room to shine. After seeing him in About A Boy and how much talent he already had at that young age and then seeing him years later in the TV show Skins with his new mature material and now here with great comedy, he will go on the become a legend.

The movie premiss is born from the same of the Twilight movies/books and if you have just read that and decided not to watch the movie then just relax because Warm Bodies isn't like that. The basic formula of human getting into a romance with that of a supernatural being is a good one, the difference is Twilight is weak while Warm Bodies is funny and engaging.

This is one of those movie with a soundtrack, and if you are one of those people that loves the best of the eighties then you'll enjoy listening to this. The tracks selected are solid and funny, but even though I said best of the eighties there are still some older and some newer songs to browden the taste range. Its just a solid soundtrack and theres even one momnet where they even get a rather good joke out of it.

If there has ever been a need for a Zombie romance (probably not) or if that idea alone interests you then this movie will work. There are plenty of wasted potential in movies but Jonathan Levine does a good job of Directing and adapting the material from the book. Not that the genre needed it but Warm Bodies makes the rotting bodies of Zombies even more refreshing.

Rating: 3 1/2 stars out of 4

There was a continuing feeling that was going through me while watching Cloud Atlas, hope. With the release of more and more daring unique films like The Tree of Life and Samsara this movie gave me hope that movies are not dying, they are only beginning to bloom.

Cloud Atlas tells many tales over many years, in many different life times with characters and situations constantly changing, age, ethnicity and mostly the century that they take place in. The movie constantly cuts to a different story that eventually reveals itself to be a masterful whole in itself.

This is truly a miracle of a movie. The Watchowski's along with Tom Tykwer gathered up the funds they needed for this project all on their own and assembled a cast that I think may be unmatched in the history of the movies. With over one hundred million dollars as their independent budget this makes Cloud Atlas the highest budget independent movie ever and arguably the best looking.

I think that if you come across an ambitious writer or filmmaker and you give them a book and say that its un-filmable then they will say "ow really". The book Cloud Atlas, by author Dave Michell belongs in the pile of books that are considered to be untranslatable into film. Well now here come these visionaries to take that challenge and prove everyone else wrong.

The cast rotates with each story, one has Halle Berry as a reporter in the seventies accompanied by Keith David, Tom Hanks is a tribesman in the future, Jim Browdbent is a publisher in trouble in the modern day, Ben Whishaw is a young composer with much talent and potential. Tom Hanks is the most reoccurring out of all of them, everyone knows Tom Hanks as "the nice guy" well here he not only gets the chance to play some roles that take him in more of a different direction but also some parts that you would have never imagined him in if you would have had a million years to think of it. Have you ever thought of casting Tom Hanks as a crooked doctor? How about a cockney skin head, foul mouthed writer? Didn't think so. The second would be Hugo Weaving, a classic Wachowski choice, playing mostly villains (naturally), there is even one story that he even gets to switch genders. You even get to see Hugh Grant put on an American accent (no its not that good, but at least you can say you've seen it).

The movie works more like a collage than a traditional three act movie. It weaves its stories together and you can look at one point of it and admire that section, or you can take a step back and admire the selesai image that forms when you view them all together.

Clearly the movie is saying that reincarnation is real but what comes with that? Have you ever heard a piece of music, or seen another person in the street and felt that you knew them? Or heard that piece of music before? Our lives are all a part of the great amalgamation of a whole and the whole is made up of the little pieces that are our lives, that may one day spiral towards one great truth, or whole, or just will always lead to the next door in our never ending journey.

During one section with Ben Whishaw as a young composer, he writes a melody that is named Cloud Atlas. The movie itself is like a piece of music with a theme and a chorus and a few repeated notes throughout the movie, one such repeated note is a blue stone that gets passed down through the ages.

The music, ow my the music. Cloud Atlas already has one of my favorite movie scores of all time, it is the music of dreams that you are sure you've heard before but cant seem to remember where from or when. It is a truly magical tune that will stay with me to the end of my days. Right now while I'm typing this review I'm listening to the soundtrack.

There are some Quantum physicists that theorize that all time is happening simultaneously, clearly there's a little of that theory going on here withing the writing, the past is happening right now and so is the future, it is only our perception of the three dimensions that stops us from seeing all of time itself. But still beyond that, reincarnation is more than who we were previously but the people we will become and will meet.

Cloud Atlas is, as the old saying goes "its a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." This films true purpose or message will never fully reveal itself because it will always change and adapt to whenever I or anyone else watches it.

Rating: 4 stars out of 4

The story of Dorthy going from the sepia-toned Kansas to the magical, colorful world of Oz is the stuff of movie legend, any film fan worth their salt has seen the cinematic classic The Wizard of Oz. It has been hailed as a classic through and through with a great look, message and characters that have stood the test of time.

Oz The Great & Powerful tells the story of the man behind the curtain and the events that turned that simple man into a great one. The movie starts in black & white in the four by three gold ratio (nice) and in all places Kansas, with a simple magician with a lot of ambition but a skeptical audience and somewhat concomitant crew. Oz himself is played by James Franco, who is really building up a career for himself, who plays the carnival magician named Oz (go figure), he brings some classic, but also believable loopyness to the role but he is eventually joined by a supporting cast that makes him seem like the straight man.

When Oz gets into some trouble with his fellow carnies he is forced to make a getaway in a hot air balloon and gets sucked into a angin ribut and is then transported to the magical world of Oz. When this happens the screen literally changes and the ratio goes from four by three to traditional sixteen by nine. This was a great trick to use, never have I ever seen the screen actually change before my eyes, maybe one day other filmmakers will find a way to do even greater things with this idea. When Dorothy enters Oz for the first time it goes from sepia to color, here it goes from black & white to very colorful, this was a good way to let the visuals shock the audience more because of course we're used to color now, so the heavy saturation of color makes it more visually striking, maybe not to the same effect that it was in nineteen thirty nine but still effective.

There is some great comedy that comes from the supporting cast in this movie. Zack Braff plays a flying monkey (not in the employ of any Witch) and he is sarcastic, weird and hilarious. Joey King plays a little china girl, who is seven different kinds of adorable, her voice acting is great, she so effortlessly portrays the character and the emotions. There are others with other funny lines and there all a treat.

The first person Oz meats when he gets to...well Oz is Theadora (Mila Kunis) the youngest of three Witch sisters, she is spirited and optimistic but still has some anger and even a drop of wickedness under the surface. The next we meet is also the oldest, Evanora (Rachele Weisz) the sister that wheres her sarcasm and wickedness at face value. Then there's the middle sister, Evanora (Michelle Williams) who is lovely, kind and with a little bit of a bubble to her personality, funny because that's her unique power. The witches are all well played and very easy on the eyes.

For this review I recently watched the classic Wizard of Oz. Naturally it still holds up and The Great & Powerful gives us little references to that movie as well as ties it in nicely enough so that we could probably accept that this is indeed what happened before Dorothy came along. There are some that would scream "sacrilege!" for making another Oz movie when we already have the classic and making another one would be like defiling hollowed. There was little commercial succsess for Return To Oz, and I do doubt that most purists would go into this with high hopes, but I'm a supporter of expanding the story, I'm tired of a story that is meant to be a saga be stuck in a continuous loop. L. Frank Baum wrote fourteen Oz books in total and The Wizard of Oz is about the third one. Oz The Great & Powerful expands and builds on the legacy of Oz, but it does not rewrite or defile it.

If anyone has seen the trailer for this movie then you know about the clip where  there is a fire angin ribut with the silhouette of the Wicked Witch of the West in the center. When I saw this for the first time I shrank three foot, my hair became lighter and fluffier, my voice got four time higher and I screamed "AH, SHES BACK!". Within that angin ribut I saw the creature of my nightmares return to once again torment me. This actual clip isn't even used in the movie, well sort of. Its kind of chopped up through editing and the actual few seconds where we seen her in silhouette is cut out, but there's good build up to her so good enough. The Wicked Witch of the West, played by Margaret Hamilton, is of course one of movies greatest villains, most likely because she was introduced to most people at a very young age. Most likely by now you all know that the Witch is in the film and who plays her, I wont say who it is but all I'll say is, it wouldn't have been my first casting choice, the performance is solid enough and finally the laugh is perfect the laugh is as terrifying and accurate as the silhouette.

Sam Raimi sits in the directing chair and with classic Raimi bring a lot of energy and fun to the picture. He is a Director that knows how to balance out the effects along with the characters and storytelling. This was however another picture that I avoided to see in 3D, what I got was a clear colorful picture with moments that I could tell was playing to the 3D but still played out fine in the regular 2D.

Danny Elfman does the soundtrack for the movie and its classic Elfman. It's catchy and fun and there's even a moment that big Elfman fans might recognize as a nod too his classic score from Edward Scissorhands.

Oz The Great & Powerful may not be a great film, but its a good one and with all the half hearted, unimaginative remakes and lackluster fantasy movies out there this is a welcome change of passe. Oz has the commercial sense that went into Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (which I liked) but also adds some unique ideas and style that was in Snow White & The Huntsman. This movies is better than Alice but not as good as Huntsman, its just a solid movie with enough originality, comedy and clever enough hints and references to the classic movie that may even enrich your experience when you decide to watch it again. Oz is a wonderful, magical place to go, it was good to go there again.

Rating: 3 stars out of 4

The story starts with a man named Shadow in prison serving his sentence. When his sentence is done, coming up in a few weeks, he knows exactly what he's going to do. He's going to go back to his home town and get back his old job, working with his best friend and be with his loving wife again. However Shadow gets called in to the warden one day and he learns that his wife and best friend have both died in a car crash, due to this tragedy he gets an early release. What now?

Neil Gaiman is one the best types of authors, the ones with his own voice. The way he sets up a scene and the way a conversations unravels are done in a unique style that you can identify as "pure Gaiman" with all the quirks and personalities that he injects into his characters. Like the fact that Shadow can do coin tricks.

With his wife now dead Shadow doesn't know what to do, but he heads for home anyway while on the plane a mysterious stranger is sitting next to him the man says his name is Mr. Wednesday and he has a job for him. Mr. Wednesday has a beard, a glass eye and what is described as a large smile that has nothing to do with being happy and promises Shadow that if he takes up his job offer within a few years he will have everything he wants. Being that Shadow has nothing else going for him he accepts the job as Mr. Wednesday's bodyguard.

The thing is Mr. Wednesday isn't what he initially appears he is Odin the Norse god himself and he has a very important job for shadow. Wednesday and Shadow drive around and go to see Wednesday's friends, who are also gods themselves. It turns out that all the ancient gods of mythology at one point came to America and have been slowly weakening and some have died. But now they need to gather because of whats coming for all these gods.

It is then revealed that with its "Old Gods" in America it has also got some "New Gods" (possible reference to Jack Kirby?). These are not the gods born from the Vikings, the Romans, Greek's or Aztecs but born of modern worshiping. There is an Internet god and a god of cell phones (unless there's a god of movies and comics then I've contributed very little to these gods). The New Gods want the Old Gods out and so now Shadow is in the middle of a huge war between two types of gods.

Within the main story there are little short stories that cap off a chapter every once-in-a-while. These stories mostly go back into the past and show some of the origins of when some of the gods (some that feature in the story and some that don't). The stories by themselves are enjoyable, my favorite is about a cab driver in New York that's an old Indian god. My issue with them are that they aren't in a chapter of their own and due to the way I read I have to continue reading after I've already read a rather long chapter, so by the time I get to the short story I'm pretty tired. This is my fault and my fault only, you see when I read a book I read one chapter a day, this is my persoalan and nobody else, but if anyone else reads books this way keep this in mind.

American Gods is all about finding the core or the heart of America, but to some it may seem strange that of all people Neil Gaiman is writing this story, certainly none can deny that he's a brilliant writer, but he's British (born and bred) so how, or what right some might say, does he have to tell people what the core of America is? Well Gaiman does live in America and his response to that criticism, I feel is entirely justified, he said that his view a "America" is no different than someone who lives in Seattle that has never been to New York, now writing about New York. Gaiman isn't trying to write the "real America" he's giving the audience an America, a fictional America that exists for the story.

Ironically, even though Gaiman has a house in America most of it wasn't written there. American Gods was written at Gaiman's friends house in Ireland. It was a cold house where there was no internet access so all he could do was write. He later finished the rest of in a Las Vegas hotel.

One of the reasons this book was written was because for a while Gaiman was "stuck" writing conventional story-lines, he had to deliver a lot of screenplays, whether they be the Neverwhere movie or a movie version of Death: The High Cost of Living with "a twenty page beginning, eighty pages of middle and a twenty page end." American Gods plays out very unconventionally, there is a beginning and an end of course but the middle is the real juicy bit where it becomes many things, its fantasy and horror, but also for a few chapters its a road story, and others its a suburban drama. The book doesn't get weighed down with being only one thing, just like America itself its many things.

The edition that I've read is the Preferred Text Edition. When American Gods was first released, in 2001 it was cut down by around twelve thousand words, the book came out and was a huge success. Then on its tenth anniversary it was decided that Gaiman would be allowed to release the book as he originally intended only thing was with cutting out all the words before the book had to go through a slight re-write and Gaiman ended up liking that version so this time the book had to be rewritten again so that the story flows better with the added material. Now we have a huge six-hundred plus page book that tells this epic. This is the only version that I've read so I can't say weather the extended version or the original release is the better of the two but I can confirm that whatever version of American Gods you end up reading it will be a great read.

As some people may remember from what I said about Supergods, I mostly read books that are about two-hundred pages. So being that American Gods is over six-hundred pages it was a real commitment on my part and again I wouldn't have done it for many other writers than Neil Gaiman and with its huge amount of awards. When American Gods was released it won the Hugo, Nebula, Bram Stoker, Sfx and Locus award, there are author's that would give up their feet for just one of those awards and yet American Gods won all of them. All of its worth your time.

American Gods may not be the real America that you go and visit or are even living in right now but there is still a slice or an essence to what that mysterious great strange country is really all about.

Rating: 4 stars out of 4

If there was a source of inspiration for this blog and the way that I write reviews, it would be Roger Ebert, undeniably one of the greatest film critics of all time. Roger Ebert was the film critic for The Chicago-Sun-Times and  the star of the hit movie review show Siskel & Ebert, which ended in 1999 with the tragic dead of his partner Gene Siskel, then it became Ebert & Roeper, which was then cancelled, a new show was then produced with Roger Ebert as producer entitled Ebert presents at the movies. Yesterday as it must come to all men, Roger Ebert died, at the age of seventy from over a decades long battle with cancer.

I dont remember how I first learned about Roger Ebert, I think maybe it was sometime when I was looking up some movie reviews on YouTube and I came across an old review of Siskel & Ebert and over the the coarse of me looking up movies, these guys kept popping up again and again.

 I have always loved movies and I have always been passionate about the movies, Roger Ebert showed me that I wasn't being stupid but what I was doing was important, because movies were important. I valued his opinion above just about everybody elses that I can think of and its because of him that I was introduced to so many great movies (e.g. The Third Man, Dark City, La Dolce Vita). More than once I saw Casablanca on the shelf in a DVD store, I could have bought it but I passed on the chance why? because that DVD was not the special edition of the movie, the special edition as you might have guessed had a lot of other special features but the one I was interested in was the Commentary track by Ebert himself and what do you know it was worth it.

Of all things beyond his great analysis of movies, he was a great human being. Roger Ebert was an internationalist and never tolerated any racism or sexism. Beyond his magnificent brain I have never seen a grater love for his fellow man than Roger Ebert, he did more than shine himself, he united people and made then shine together.

Roger Ebert's last post that he made on his blog, it was titled "A Leave of Presence". You may think that reading it after his death it was a post about him knowing that the end was coming, far from it. That post was about how he needed to go into radiation treatment for his cancers return but still he had plans, he had plans to write more movie reviews, more great movie reviews, to start a new website, a Kickstarter campaign to get funding for a new "At the Movies" show and probably more things that I cant remember off the top of my head. Even at the ripe old age of seventy he still had no plans of stetting down into retirement.

Roger Ebert was married to Chaz and from the point of a humble observer, he couldn't have found a better woman to be by his side throughout his life. When I saw them together I saw that perfect piece of happiness that so many people strive for and yet so few ever achieve. My best wishes go out to Chaz at this time.

Roger Ebert's last movie review was The Host (god that's depressing), his last post on his Twitter page was a link too his "A Leave of Presence" blog post and as you'd expect his last blog post was also "A Leave of Presence".

Most of my icons are either old men or dead. Sadly that now means Roger Ebert is another one of those great people that I will never get the chance to meet. But the reason I bring that up is because they usually tell you to never meet your heroes, because they'll disappoint you. I dont think I would have been disappointed by meeting Roger Ebert because what I wanted too meet was an incredibly intelligent humble man.

What does this mean for me? This means I will still see movies, I will still review movies and to the very end I'll enjoy a good movie and be disappointed with a bad ones. But it will be strange when a big and/or beautiful movie comes out and I wont be able too look up what Ebert thought and felt about the movie.

Tilda Swinton once said about Roger Ebert "they say you are an international treasure Roger, I disagree. You are a cosmic treasure". Truer words were never spoken.

Roger Ebert 1942-2013

Note: since this post came out a new review by Roger Ebert has been posted on his website. Ebert's last movie review was in fact the Terrance Malick movie To The Wonder, this is a lot more pleasing to know that a great movie reviewer went out writing about a much more deserving movie.

If I can avoid downloading music, movies, books or comics I do. Usually if anyone asks me why I avoid it, I usually answer "I have concept of ownership". Why would I download something when I can buy it in a store and hold it in my hand?

However one day I considered the Buddhist principle of  detachment from the physical world to help reach a more spiritual existence. The Buddhist principle appeals to me and it occurred to me that in this kala of downloading data and not having a physical object to hold in your hands may help this generation in detachment from the physical possessions and will help them understand a more spiritual level of enlightenment.

Naturally one of the most obvious perks of downloading is space. Say you are going on a plane and you want to read, what fits more comfortable in your backpack a kindle and/or iPad  or a few thick paperbacks of three hundred to two hundred page books? What about back in your home life. I have shelf's of movies and comics and  I'm beginning to run out of places to put my books. An iPad with a library of  books takes up as much space as a single iPad does.

What about games? I have a Playstation 3 and I not only don't want to download games but I cant. My Playstation cannot connect to the Internet, ow I've tried, god knows its been tried but the universe simply wont let it happen. But the point is the quickness of the downloadable games simply doesn't appeal to me, I don't care what games are downloadable, I care about the real games that make it to the shelf.

In terms of renting I have a LoveFilm account (only for movies and not for games, no real reason). I don't have a Netfilx account, why? well because technology hates me. I am certain that if I attempted downloading a movie that the files would get corrupted or some other technical duduk masalah that I don't understand, so for reliability I go for physical discs. There has only been very few times when the DVDs were given in bad condition and  caused some slight stuttering, never a whole movie was unplayable.

I would never download a movie and watch it on an iPad or iPhone. I would give an explanation but David Lynch puts it best, see below...


So I suppose one of the reasons why I'm against downloading is because I really don't trust the technology.

However there is nothing in the Buddhist principle that says that one cannot have physical possessions, only that you must be detached from them, you can have cool things but you have to be willing to give them up, have them taken away or be destroyed at the drop of a hat.

On a related note, lets look at downloadable comics against print. Now I myself have an iPad and I eventually got the app to download comics. Now at this point I really didn't own that many comics and I think all I had were Watchmen and Arkham Asylum, but through downloading some free samples of comic books I got really interested in the medium and decided to get up, get out and go down to an actual comic book store and buy some real comic books (and I've never looked back). One day while I was browsing the comic store two costumers there were in mid conversation and I couldn't help but overhear them, but they raised some good points. One of them said that when his father died he left him with nothing accept for debts, but now he himself is a father with over six thousand comic books to his collection and the day he goes his children can either get some entertainment from his collection or sell them for some financial profit. You cant sell a download, a download doesn't increase in value the longer you keep it.

How about money? Money has always been a figment of human creation and is only as valuable as we determine it to be. Originally gold was deemed to be the currency with coins. But keep in mind the gold was only as valuable as we deemed it to be. But then as the population grew and the economy with it there wasn't enough gold to go around so the bills were invented, on your paper money it says that the bank promises you that amount of payment. Notes are essentially a little contract that you carry round to purchase things. Now however, they are reduced to data in a computer and lights on a screen. Money is getting boiled down and down to nothing more than an idea.

But now lets think about people who are materialistic. People who do hold their physical possessions to a high standard usually become obsessed with them and become more and more obsessed with getting more and more cool stuff. There is nothing wrong with having cool things, having cool things is fun, but there will always be cool things that you don't own, so let it go. Be happy with what you have and get what you need and think about what you want secondly.

There is however one aspect of the virtual materialism where I have fallen prey to the idea, this blog. Yes for all physical purposes this blog is not real and yet it is one of my favorite things that I own. I so enjoy writing my reviews and my big thoughts on other subjects and it is a very appreciated outlet for all my thoughts and feelings. But even then the term of owning, on a blog is very loose. I have no legal rights to the website and for all I know it could be taken down at anytime and all my work would be gone (I should really backup my posts).

But still to answer the question that the title of the post puts forward, would Buddha download? I think that if Buddha was alive and meditating today, he wouldn't care. Buddha wouldn't care that much and he would just do what would be convenient to him and see the benefit of not getting attached to a CD collection and just download or pick up his movies and music.

The X-Men were one of the first Superheroes that I ever learned about, it was the original animated series of the nineties where I first learned about them and I fell in love with them, the characters, the powers the idea of living in a world that hates you but still you defend it to the end. Then the Bryan Singer movie came out in 2000 and then the next animated series X-Men Evolution where they were portrayed more as scared fragile teenagers further developed my love of the characters.

Then over the years I discovered Grant Morrison who I loved more and more of the work I read of his. All-Star Superman is probably my favorite comic, Batman & Robin is excellent and there are plenty of others that I'm discovering now and will probably love too. So when I learned that one of (if not my absolute favorite) writer had a stint on one of Marvels biggest and best books, I decided to give it a pass...

That's right, because unlike the more streamline narrative that follows the animated series the comic book world of the X-Men is really dense and convoluted. Along with the fact that there's a million different titles that exist X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, New X-Men, Ultimate X-Men, Astonishing X-Men, Wolverine and the X-Men, New X-Men (no I didn't repeat myself there are two X-Men titles both named that) and probably more and more. Along with that baggage there's a million story elements that don't really make it very friendly for a new reader to come in and not feel weighted down with the years of continuity and story lines and not to forget the millions of characters (Kevin Smith put it best saying that X-Men had become the longest running Spanish Soap Opera with superpowers). So I thought that New X-Men would be something that would simply never be, until one day when I was listening to the commentary of All-Star Superman the animated movie, Bruce Timm himself praised Morrison's run on X-Men. Bruce Timm is one of my icons so when he praised this comic, there was no question that I would pick it up.

One thing that you will need to know before you start reading the comic is that there is some previous continuity and story arcs brought into the mix, but enough exposition is given so you understand what is happening. But if you need to be fluent on the subjects then go and watch the first three seasons of the original X-Men animated series and you'll be fine.

Before I talk about the comic itself its important to note that this came out in the early two-thousands, this was the time that the old ways were being pushed aside for the new and the more edgy and darker. It wasn't quite like the barrage of idiocy that the nineties brought, nor was it all bad but clearly everything, including superheroes were going in different directions, and this was some of the mindset that went into Morrison's New X-Men.

The cover for the first issue is just a solid cover, it has the members that Morrison will be using in his series in silhouette but with their distinguishable features highlighted so that we can still identify them, Wolverine's claws, Cyclops visor, Beast's blue fur and so forth. The weird digital spiral is a little distracting if you allow it to attract most of your attention but it merely serves to put the characters in an abstract space where we focus on them rather than the environment that their in. Also look at the logo for this series There were two reasons why this series was called New X-Men, the first I'll tell you about is that Morrison himself designed the logo for the series and Joe Quesada was against using that title but Morrison revealed that if you turn the image upside-down, its the same image, this can even be something that can be interpreted into the series itself but we'll get to that later. So they kept the numbers but changed the title and so starts Morrison's run.

Also we get a look at the new costumes that are featured in this series. The early two-thousands were a time when things needed to be reinvented. The X-Men are not dressed like superheroes, gone are the spandex and in with the leather jackets, one of the best examples I can think of for this is Warren Ellis and his run on The Authority, think of the character the Midnighter and instead of a cape had a long leather jacket. The direction that we see the X-Men in here are not heroes more like a rescue emergency team, with the X incorporated into the clothing for that uniform look, also the original color of the X-men was black and yellow, so that serves as a nice nod to the original. So what we have is a good amalgamation of the old and new.

I should note that unlike my Swamp Thing review were I analyzed the covers, New X-Men doesn't really have very interesting covers, there mostly just straight forward pinup shots of the characters, nothing wrong with that but it doesn't leave much to talk about or analyze, they'll be a few just not for each issue that I want to talk about.

The first story arc is a three-parter entitled "E is for Extinction" drawn by Morrison's most regular collaborator Frank Quitely. Quitely is my favorite comic book artist and he collaborates best with Morrison, able to portray his wild ideas but also being able to translate them to the audience so that they can understand it, I also love it whenever he draws long lasting characters because he always draws them looking like you imagine them but in his own way makes them look fresh.

Anyway the issue starts off with a huge splash page of Wolverine and Cyclops taking down a Sentinel. Wolverine's going crazy by clawing the hell out of the Sentinel and Cyclops casually says "Logan I think you an stop now", already the series starts off with a great image that is pure X-Men. Next we see a mysterious woman talking to a man about the end of Neanderthals and the rise of Homo-sapiens, that they slowly grew in numbers and in a pivotal moment of the Earths history the Homo-sapiens slaughtered the remaining Neanderthals, leaving the Homo-sapiens as the dominant race. She tells him this because this is going to happen to the humans...by the Mutants.

Meanwhile back at the Xavier Mansion Hank (Beast) is getting Cerebra up and ready to work, Cerebra is "Cerebro's big sister". Also we see Beast, but not as we know him, his mutation has pushed him to the next level and he now resembles a cat like creature (he's reminiscent of Beauty & The Beast). Also one really cool touch that was added was that when Professor X is using Cerebra there is a visualization of what their doing and it is called "physic condensation".

Re-reading this issue reminded me of why I love Morrison's writing, constantly while I was reading the issue I was shouting "brilliant, Brilliant, BRILLIANT!". Everything was something new and fresh with ideas that I would have never thought of, but seem logical and you wonder why nobody has ever though of them before.

Then while the professor is scanning the world with Cerebra something goes wrong and and he hears a voice calling to him through Cerebra and he demands that the voice gets out of his mind. He pulls a gun and puts it to his head and gives it one chance to get out, before Jean quickly yanks off the Cerebra helmet, cutting off the link between him and the voice.

Next issue Cyclops and Wolverine get captured by the mysterious woman. She then explains that the classic sentinels are not meant to deal with the mutants of today, in the cities of today, the sentinels need to adapt. But after the quick villain monologue Wolverine and Cyclops quickly breakout and then capture her. The professor seems to have recovered, but the new sentinels have been unleashed on Genosha  and over fifteen million mutants are slaughtered within  a few minutes.

Then we have the next issue, ow me ow my do we have the next issue. This issue is riddled from paper to staple with controversy that literally starts with the cover. The cover is a pinup shot of Emma Frost posed like a supermodel. Grace Randolph in particular has stated her distaste for this cover and has brought it up on her show more than once, she has told us that as soon as she got the comic home she tore off the cover and even wrote a letter to Marvel saying that she was embarrassed as a woman to be seen buying the comic. The awkwardness continues in a full splash page of a devastated, still smoking Genosha with Beast standing in the wreckage and holding a dead Mutants skull in hand (Hamlet style) saying "I don't know how to break this to you, but your dating days may be over my friend". Keep in mind that this came out in 2001, so in one of those awkward moments of art imitating real life in the worst way this was a few months away from 9/11, so as you can imagine this issue may have hit a little too close to home for the people who were living in New York or for anyone who had any connections in New York at that time.

During the search for the wreckage the X-Men uncover Emma Frost, The White Queen, emerging from the rubble with a dead mutant student in her arms (still awkward) but there's something else to her, her skin has transformed into diamond. Yes once again Morrison has injected another piece to the mythology of X-Men by introducing the idea of secondary mutations.

Emma Frost was a villain before she came in this series and classic Morrison, he turned a B list (or even C list) character into one of the main characters in his run and turn them into fully developed character that's just as interesting as the main roster. Emma Frost soured to peoples favorite characters and stared in a lot more books and continued to be an A Lister for the X-Men ever since then.

Anyway it would seem that the mysterious woman is some kind of entity from "beyond the twilight of reality" and her name is Cassandra Nova. For a while it would seem like Cassandra is captured but really it was all part of the plan to be taken back to the mansion and get access to Cerebra so that she can take out all remaining Mutants. This then follows some action and some weird psychic stuff with Cassandra before she gets to Cerebra.

It looks like Cassandra will use Cerebra to kill all the Mutant's before in classic last second fashion Emma Frost arrives to pull the plug on her scheme (by which I mean snapping her neck), but then Wolverine remembers that she has a healing factor and she starts getting up again before out of nowhere she gets shot five times. It was the professor who shot her saying that it was necessary being that she killed over fifteen-million mutants and would have killed all of them. Cassandra is then sent into a comatose state.

Later, after Jean and Scott talk out some of their problems they see the Professor on TV announcing to the world that he is a Mutant. ...Ow hell!

Then we come to the foundation of Morrison's run, New X-Men Annual 2001. This is a bigger seized comic than usual (of course) but there's also something else to it that makes it stick out, the whole issue is displayed sideways. My first question is why? this isn't like the issue of Swamp Thing where there was A) a reason for turning the comic on its side due to what happens in the story B) turning the comic on its side for no reason takes me, as a reader, out of the reading experience and frankly I can only think what it would look like from a third person perspective, they might mistake me for reading a porno. But I digress, my point is that the side view is unnecessary and quite frankly unwelcome.

But what about the issue itself? Well its called "The Man in Room X" and it starts off in China with a mysterious Mutant named Xorn who is being held prisoner. So naturally the X-Men move in to free the innocent Mutant. They also come into contact with a weird businessman named John Sublime who seems to be very interested in the Mutants. It turns out that John is part of the U-Men, an new enemy of the X-Men that are introduced in this run. They are about taking Mutants powers (along with their organs) and taking them for themselves.

While the X-Men are resting for the night Scott cant sleep, luckily there's a knocking on the door and on the other end is Emma Frost with a bottle of champagne with two glasses. Foreshadowing!

The issue is drawn by Leinil Francis Yu. He can handle whatever is thrown at him but always gives what he's drawing weight and gravity. He only worked on this one annual, shame but his work is appreciated.

Xorn's power is one of the most interesting and unique of all the Mutants that I've heard of, he has a tiny sun for a brain, along with this he has the power to heal. Being that he has a sun for a brain he has to wear a helmet. The design for the helmet is very cool its like a big metal skull.

By the end of the annual the X-Men succeed in freeing Xorn and allow him to experience the whole world. He thanks them and says that he will always be their friend and if they should ever need him then he will be there for them. 

The next issue has the mansion opening up to all new students and the professor announcing that he will be taking a leave of absence, for he is going to spend time with the Shi'ar empire and his wife Lilandra, leaving Jean in charge as acting headmistress. So the professor boards the Shi'ar vessel with the power to "extinguish suns" just imagine that power in the wrong hands.

Issue 118 is interesting, not because of what happens in it but because within the issue itself, if you look closely at a few selective panels, there are shapes and lines that form the word "sex". I've heard it was because the artist, Eithan Van Sceiver, was fed up with editorial tampering so he decided to mess with them and get something that really shouldn't be in the comic past their notice and straight into the eyes of the nitpicky fanboys and girls out there. 

For the next issues, Igor Kordey handles the art. Frank Quitely is, by reputation a slow artist, and he's not great at meeting the deadlines of a monthly book like X-Men, so they brought in Kordey to fill in when Quitely couldn't meet the deadlines. Kordey most likely received this news on short notice and it shows because his art is rushed, and a little sloppy. Now don't take that comment as me saying that he's a bad artist or that in any way meaning that I'm insinuating that I can draw better than him. I am a terrible artist, throw a rock in a crowd and you'll find someone that can draw better than me. But his characters stray off model and they just look ugly, no offense to the man himself but his issues aren't great for their art.

Anyway there are rioters outside the mansion and Scott, Jean and Emma go to settle them down but they dont seem to be in the mood for peaceful negotiations. But they get subdued by Emma, she gives the entire riot crowd orgasms...yeah, shes awesome. After that Scott and Emma have to leave to confront John Sublime. 

While they confront him Scott and Emma get taken down through the use of a Mutant brain that Sublime keeps in a jar and drugged up...ew. Meanwhile the U-Men storm the mansion with only Jean and the other students there. Jean calms the young students and tries to call the police for help but they say "Help yourself Mutie". Even though things seem hopeless Jean rallies the students together and they all defend the mansion against the U-Men, then Jean deals the simpulan blow against them with the use of some very familiar psychic fire that she emanates. Then later, of course Emma and Scott break free before they can be dissected and Emma is seriously pissed, mostly that she got her nose broken (apparently it was expensive). Then she gets her hands on John Sublime and throws him out the window, to Scott's great displeasure. Scott and Emma return to the mansion with the U-Men cleared out and everything seems fine but then Beast emerges with Cassandra Novas body held in his arms saying "professor X is trapped in this old woman's hedd..help".

Issue 121 is an interesting comic. First of all comic books are a sequential art-form, the story must be told through a sequence of images that flow from one picture to the next with a stream of motion and continuity that follows through from panel to panel. So what greater test and or example of that than having a comic that is silent, well no word balloons. The cover really is all you need to know about what information we get out of the issue itself but the way the story is told is so interesting and unique that its worth paying the full price to see it yourself. The cover itself has the head of Casandra Nova with the image of professor Xavier within her forehead and well drawn lighting placing bars across the professors face, plain and simple Xavier is trapped within Casandra's body.

The art is handled by one of the only artist that I would trust to tell a story with images alone, Frank Quietly. Again he is my favorite comic artist so if there has to be a higher emphasis on images than dialogue I'm glad its him. What we have is Jean and Emma psychically going inside to find out the secrets of what is happening within Cassandras body and the weird, surreal images that we get of how the mind might work if we had to step inside and walk around in it are a visual delight. In the end we have one full splash page that sums up everything with only two word balloons of dialogue (OK so there is some dialogue in the issue), saying that Cassandra is Charles's evil twin (seriously) and he tried to kill her while they were both still in the womb but now shes back. Nuff said.

The explanation for how Cassandra actually exists is a little head scratching, even for me. Apparently she is what the Shi'ar call a mummudrai. The yin to the professors yang and even though he won for dominance in the womb she still came through the limits of death and pulled herself into the physical world. Yeah it's a real brain twister if you think about it for too long, just go with it.

Later the X-Men decide to hold an open to the media day, to look through the mansion and see that there is nothing wrong or sinister going on with the mansion and all they want is to educate the young Mutants. Scott shows concerns that things might be getting out of hand and tries to talk to Jean but she, rather coldly scorns him and tells him to get over it and see past his own weaknesses.

One of the landmark notes in this run of X-Men was the characterization of Scott Summers. Morrison once described him a Norman Bates that never killed anyone and that's pretty true to some degree. Cyclops has always been the professors golden boy, he has been possessed, captured, degraded, tortured and has always had to endure to pressure and responsibility of leading the X-Men. The fact that Cyclops hasn't experienced some kind of huge breakdown is actually incredible. This is not the breaking down and crying version of the character but it is the window into the mans soul version of him, we see Scott with doubts, we see him with worries and him questioning what he should do next when all his other decisions have led to nothing but more pain and unhappiness for him. None of this is helped by the fact that Jean is not so supportive and even a little disgusted with him.

After that Scott realizes that with the professor dying within Cassandras body, there is only one person to turn to, Xorn. Scott fly's to China to pick up Xorn where he seems to be more comfortable, being accepted by some monks in a temple and using his powers for good. But the temple gets bombed and Scott and Xorn both get captured and taken to the Shi'ar ship (wow a lot of people get captured in the series).

Things take a turn for the wost when Beast analyzes their blood under a microscope and discovers that the cause of their growing illness are the advanced sentinels that have adapted to microscopic size, have infected every member of the X-Men and are killing them from within.

Finally the battle with Cassandra comes and the Shi'ar soldiers invade the school, Jean backs everyone in the lower area of the mansion, while Beast and Wolverine stay on the outside to hold back the soldiers. They hold the lines very well but their no match for the head of the guard, Gladiator. Luckily they convince the Shi'ar that they are not their enemies, so they go to defend against Cassandra, only they are no match for her. At the same time Scott and Xorn breakout and quickly make their way to the mansion.

Cassandra has now harnessed the full power of professor X's brain and has become some kind of all powerful psychic monster, with psychic limbs forming around her and attacking. She easily takes out the Shi'ar guards and moves in for the remaining X-Men.

Then in classic last minute fashion Scott and Xorn arrive to take out Cassandra and cure the Mutants from the sentinels. Xorn tackles Cassandra (in professors body) then Beast injects her with syringes, she easily brushes them off. Then she makes her way down to Cerbra to wipe out all of the Mutants in the world...but. Jean took the professors mind and divided it up amongst all the Mutants into world, so Cassandra has now joined his mind together and pushed Cassandra out.

Cassandra is now just floating consciousness that is slowly evaporating without a body to contain it, it seems like shes doomed before Emma offers her original body for her to enter. Except that Cassandra's body, just like everyone else has been infected by the micro sentinels and is deteriorating along with her mind.  Cassandra is then  put into a sort of psychic prison, where she is put in some kind odd weird preschool and is constantly being lectured by professor X and Jean.

Now Cassandra is in a vegetated state and the school is still standing and all seems right. Beast offers to get the Professors chair but he says that it wont be necessary because the Professor is climbing out of Cerebra, the Professor can walk now.

One thing to know that I didn't know when I decided to buy the comic. I had previously bought Batman & Robin, that lasts sixteen issues, All-Star Superman, that lasts twelve issues and WE3 only lasted three issues. So I thought that this would be a small run, I was wrong. Being that the end of issue 126 doesn't end in the way that most writers runs would end I learned that there was a fourth paperback, then a fifth, then  sixth, then another and another that totaled up to eight paperbacks with forty issues total. This is a big epic of a tale, that you'll have to commit to more that a lighter run. Is it worth it? ow hell yes.

Issue 127 is possibly my favorite issue of the whole run with it being told from the perspective and giving some development to Xorn. The story is just a day in the life of Xorn and how he sees things, what his views are. All told through diary entries.

The cover just makes me laugh, its Xorn in a meditation position with a serious posture, however he's looking at a cheese burger. This is funny but after looking really hard at it I think I have an idea about the reason for the cover. Xorn has been in captivity most of his life and what time he wasn't he was in China, now he is in America in a whole different situation which he now must adapt to. So we have the meditating position looking at one of the big icons of western culture, i.e. the cheeseburger.

Xavier wants to get to know Xorn more but however he cannot simply dip into his mind so he can get a taste of the man because Xorn doesn't have a regular mind, he has a tiny star and the professor is "blinded by his thoughts". He walks the streets, sees the sights and then comes across a young mutant who is going through the developing stages of his mutation, he looks like a baby gargoyle. Xorn does his best to help but the boy runs wild and the cops have to bring him down. At the end of the day Xorn meets an old Chinese man from his area of China and they sit and eat noodles together in the rain and "life goes on".

The art is drawn by John Paul Leon, Leon has an interesting art style, with thick black lines that look like they were done with a runny pen, or a brush. Leon's art-style has grown on me the more I've looked at it. Its not what you would classify as pretty art but with closer inspection you can see that hes drawing characters and framing them to an almost photographic level. I say If you like David Mazzucchelli then you'll like his work.

Morrison's run on X-Men has been criticized (mostly by big X-Men fans) that its too Vertigo. Yes Morrison is a very popular Vertigo writer and indeed some of his best work does come from there. But most of the criticizing says that his run is boring, its all talking and no punching and explosions. If that's the case then I'm a Vertigo guy, I love the exposition and the quite character building moments.

This X-Men story has the coin effect, with one side being positive or negative and the other, naturally, being the reverse. The first half of the book is surprisingly positive with everything seemingly getting better for the X-Men with publicity, new students, media attention that's good for them. Then the flip happens and everything goes to shit and what we thought was a good thing turns out to be their undoing.

Then eventually comes the big play, the part of the series that makes this run a landmark in all the history of the X-Men, Scott and Emma have an affair. That's right morally upright, Xavier's golden boy Scott Summers circum's to his basic needs and has a psychic affair with the seductive White Queen. Its so interesting because they really do succumb to their thoughts but its not physical. This is one of the most steamy interesting subplots that I have ever read in a comic, I mean just say that out loud "psychic affair" only in superhero comics.

We then meet the star pupil in the Xavier school, a dorky kid named Quentin Quire (he's about as popular as most star pupils are). While the professor is giving a lecture Quire shows no restraint in questioning the professor at every turn of how he believes that Mutant/human relationship should be. He even wears a T-shirt that says "Magneto was right". Quire grows more and more displeased with the professors peaceful slow way of making progress and decides that his time is done and he will take the future of the Mutant race into his own hands. One of the big pushing forces in his radical decision making is the new drug for Mutants that is circling the hallways called "Kick" (the names these kids come up with".

The drug Kick allows its users to get and incredible rush of confidence and power for five hours. It is taken in a kind of breather dispenser. After they take it their powers get increased five fold. That is when Quentin and his group assemble with a new hair style and new different clothes and they name themselves the "New X-Men!".

New X-Men started in two-thousand and one, when I first read it it was two-thousand and eleven. So when I read it the story was ten years old and it didn't feel it at all, it still read as refreshing and as sophisticated as I'm sure it was when it was first published. One of the most surreal things that happens is when we see Quintin Quires new gang, they wear what would now be considered Hipster clothes. This comic seems to be ahead of the curve by about ten years.

Riot at the Xavier school is the last story arc illustrated by Frank Quitley. It is also one of the most pivotal of Morrison's run. To Morrison, the X-Men were all about children vs adults and here it is fully demonstrated with the students rioting and taking control of the school. The old ideas are outdated and uncool and now here comes the new generation with bold new ideas and ways of doing things.

Quentin Quire has now assembled his gang of Mutants, they restrain professor X and have taken over the school. Wolverine tries to stop them but Quentin traps him within his own memories. Then the Cuckoo's gather together with Cerebra and take Quentin down while the other X-Men take care of the other students, but the victory came at a price because Sophie (one of the Cuckoo's) pushes herself beyond her limits and along with the strain from Cerebra and the drug kick overexerts herself. Quentin also sinks into a dying state and Xorn helps him enter the light. Both figuratively and literally.

With the aftermath of the riot, Quentin's other comrades get a sever talking to from Wolverine before being handed over to the authorities. The Cuckoos decide that Sophie's death was more than partly because of Emma and the way she pushed them to be heroic, so they abandon her. They also reach out to Jean Grey and tell her that they would like to be her new students next year and they have something to tell her about her husband. With Emma in a very fragile state Scott comforts her and they share a thought together, they are about to psychically have sex but right before they do Jean psychically interrupts them saying "let me guess, you can explain".

After a long awkward scene with Jean throwing Scott out of the psychic area and confronting Emma. She scolds Scott but takes Emma through a big long judgmental tore through her whole life with her working her way from rich society to rich society doing what she had to do to survive. By the end of it all Emma is in tears.

After a huge scene has been made Scott runs off, Jean goes to find some privacy and Wolverine comforts Emma who reveals that she has fallen in love with Scott. Later in the night Beast enters Emma's room to try his had at comforting her but Emma Frost is found in her diamond form and shattered into a thousand pieces. Someone killed her and everyone's a suspect. The question is who shot Emma Frost? 

The professor then calls in Bishop to solve the mystery of who committed the crime. Meanwhile Beast goes about reassembling Emma, piece by microscopic piece at a time. Through the coarse of the investigation it is revealed that it was the Cuckoo Esme that was behind Emma's shooting. But Bishop is not entirely satisfied because he believes that there is someone behind all this that is pulling the strings. Ow and Beast fully assembles Emma back together and she's fine.

Then the endgame gets put into motion. It starts with the professor  sensing a presence in the Cerebra room, it is the mutant Dust, she is almost undetectable in her dust state but she then moves to destroy Cerebra when immediately Xorn captures her in a glass jar. The professor then enters Xorn's class to find that the maps are placed upside-down. Suddenly professor X collapses to the floor and Xorn tells him that he didn't heal him, he merely used the micro Sentinels to glue his spine back together, then he takes off his helmet.

Then comes the big reveal, the villain that has been in the shadows, pulling the strings the whole time. It was Xorn. Actually it goes even deeper than that because Xorn isn't even real, under the helmet, the whole time was Magneto. That's right the whole time, the times they talked, the trouble they got out of it was their greatest enemy.

Magneto wastes no time in assembling his new brotherhood, formed from the lesser students of the school, shoots up on kick and forms a full on assault on New York.

The characterization of Magneto has been heavily criticized (again, by the fans) for being off character and one dimensional. According to Morrison "Magneto is just a mad old bastard" both are right, yes there is more to Magneto than him just being a psycho terrorist, but Morrison is also right in saying that the bastard side is there. What the fans didn't pay attention to is that there is a scene where Xorn's helmet literally speaks to him and he says that "he made Xorn too well. I am your conscious". Morrison said that Xorn was the real personality with all his intelligence and gentleness focuses into that one character, so in the end both sides are right.

Phil Jimenez draws this story arc and like Quitely, he is one of Morrison's great collaborators (built over the time they worked together in The Invisibles). He does a great job of continuing from Quitely, because he follows his character designs, along with the fact that he's just a great artist. I love the way he draws Magneto, the design itself is like Ian McKellen's from the movie's with a long cape and long tight coat underneath, but the helmet is the classic design. What I really love about it is the way he draws his cape, its as if there's a big fan following him around all the time every panel is so Shakespearean and dramatic, I love it.  
Meanwhile, in a parallel story Cyclops and Wolverine are on a journey to get to the bottom Wolverines origin. They encounter other weapons in the Weapon X project before the trail leads them to the main computer that has the information on all the candidates that were used of the weapon process. But when Wolverine is faced with all the facts of his true origin he is saddened by it. What if this is a lie as well, what if there is more secrets to be unveiled? what if in twenty, ten, five or next year this all gets retconned?

This book came out at a time when Morrison was going through some dark times in his life and it shows. The depression and cynicism that came with the twenty first century is in this comic and the long running never fully answered questions that come with being a comic book character are here and the characters are aware of it, and saddened by it.

The of course back in Manhattan Magneto has taken full control of the island and powered by the drug Kick has enormous power. He plans to turns the continents upside-down and he might have the power to do it. With his mass amount of power he hurls all the cars in New York together, killing thousands, time for the X-Men.

The X-Men eventually gather together with what they have and launch their assault on Magneto. They attack in full force barely even allowing Magneto to catch his breath, Cyclops particularly loses it with him being a ragging force of nature from the betrayal of his friend being their greatest enemy. They hit him with everything they've got, shatter his helmet but Magneto still has the Xorn helmet that works the same. Magneto tries to lead his Mutant brothers to victory but they dont even believe that it really is Magneto, even the X-Men are saying that "Xorn" should surrender.

Then with all the madness building up and up Magneto takes off his helmet and declaring that he is indeed Magneto, that's when Jean and the Professor hit him with their psychic blast and restrain him. Jean comforts him but Magneto has one last blow to strike, with an electromagnetic pulse straight into Jeans's system.

Then with all this madness the most pinnacle moment in the series run happens, the death of Jean Grey. Yes Jean Grey dies again in this arc and this time it has been a death that has stuck, until only fairly recently with Avenger vs X-Men and the Marvel Now launch. After re-reading it, it came off a little more rushed that I remember it but through Scott we do feel the pain and the effect of her going and her last line to him is so tragically on the nose "I'm always dying on you".

Next Wolverine goes into his berserk rage mode and decapitates Magneto, just as he did before Morrison's, run began. 

"Always", Jean dying again, Wolverine cutting off Magneto's head just the way he did before Morrison's run began. The tragedy of the symmetrical logo comes into view with the characters both beginning and ending the same, until the end of time.

The last story arc is "Here Comes Tomorrow". When I first read this I wasn't a fan of it and I thought that it should have ended at the end of "Planet X". But after thinking about it more and having re-read it again I realized that what Morrison was doing was that he was writing the last X-Men story. Of course there's no such thing as the real last X-Men story but still if you give a story an ending it gives it shape and form, so good for him.

The cover of the issue is Wolverine looking behind to the viewer and the landscape itself is of iconic landmarks huddled together with weird tubes moving through them. The cover works by the viewer catching up to Wolverine, who's in the future and us seeing what the future hold for us (or at least these characters). The art for the story is handle by the popular Image artist Marc Silvestri, he's pretty good, he has a real Jim Lee feel to his work with lots of extra lines that run across the characters. He's not even a Jim Lee imitator (like so many are) he is a generally good artist that draws good bodies and big landscapes, so his work is very enjoyable.

The story takes place one hundred and fifty years in the future and Wolverine is still a bad-ass, Cassandra Nova is still alive and working again, but for the good guys, there's only one human left on Earth and Beast is now the ultimate enemy (what the hell?). Beast has learned to harness the Phoenix force and use it to his own diabolical ends, in this we get to see Wolverines end and the end of most things. But we also get to see the never ending cycle of the Phoenix and its reincarnations throughout all of time and Jean with the whole universe in the palm of her hands sends Scott that one simple word "live".

Even though this did come in a bad time in Morrison's life and it still shows there is always hope and optimism for the future, and that is how the story ends with something new and wonderful being formed with the new relationship between Scott and Emma.

One of the biggest mistakes that Marvel made after Morrison left the X-Men was retconning the Xorn/Magneto part of the continuity. Apparently as soon as Morrison left the book, they turned the title back to Uncanny X-Men and revealed that Xorn was never Magneto and that it WAS a mutant named Xorn, who it turns out has a twin brother...also named Xorn (comics are confusing). This just goes to show that Morrison had a point with saying that these character lives are just a continuing series of seeming progress but always the rewrites and retconnes will hold them back. Now I know why Marvel did this, because they needed to say that Magneto was not really dead, of course he's not dead, he literally says in the book that he always comes back. You don't have to retcon this so you can bring the character back. Frankly I would have bought that it was a clone or he was brought back to life, either one would be better than this excuse.

I once read that Morrison had an idea for a story where the Xavier school accept their first human student. The human student gets picked on because naturally he has no powers, but he can play guitar. He can play guitar so well that the other students consider it a power and he is eventually accepted by the other students. I would have loved to see this issue, it would have been a great read. The story would have been encouraging to readers and encourage them to embrace their gifts and talents and realize that it is what makes them special. Shame that it didn't happen.

Saying that New X-Men is my favorite run of X-Men would be silly because it is (so far) the only comic run of X-Men that I've read. But even so I can still appreciate it for how much it changed the status-quo of X-Men and implemented changes that have lasted to this day. It has great characterization and huge themes and stories, I recommend it to people that have never read an X-Men comic before to pick this up.

New X-Men is available in eight trade paperbacks, three thicker paperbacks and one giant fifteen hundred page omnibus edition.