More on X-Men. And Apocalypse Speculation
In a sign that the fannish feelings that DOFP aroused in me are elevating my fannish consumption to new levels, I have started watching some of the 90s X-Men cartoons. And I am rather enjoying them. It started with watching the cartoon!DOFP on YouTube, but I've now got a couple of volumes on DVD (they are super cheap). For all that the voice acting and production values are terrible, the stories are excellent -- they don't shy away from the political dimensions of the X-Men-verse, and the conflict is always a bit messy for every character, never quite clear cut (in contrast, X-Men Evolution, all available on YouTube, is TERRIBLE -- I gave up five or so episodes in). I understand that the 90s cartoon is based strongly on the comics (which I haven't read), so I'm guessing that's a big factor in why the stories work so well.
It's also actually making me think that a theory I came up with about Apocalypse may actually be... not far off. Now, as a disclaimer, I still haven't really engaged much with other fans in this fandom -- I've been reading fic on AO3, and I've started following a couple of tumblrs (though I have no content on my own), but I haven't really got into any in-depth discussions. So it is quite possible (probable even) that other people have been saying this for ages, and I'm well behind the times. But anyway.
So, a couple of days after we saw movie!DOFP, I turned to D and said, "You know, if First Class, in the 60s, was all about the cold war and approaches to civil rights, and DOFP in the 70s was all about drugs, then isn't the Big Issue in Apocalypse, set in the 80s, going to be some sort of HIV thing? Like some sort of plague that the humans will use to wrongfully demonise mutants?" But you know, I'm usually wrong about these things, so I didn't think much more about it until THAT EXACT STORYLINE turned up in the cartoon (the story is called "Time Fugitives"), as something that Apocalypse actually does as part of his quest for world domination/extermination. And it's even sort of done as a sequel to cartoon!DOFP (it doesn't come directly afterwards, but the "previously on..." spiel is all DOFP).
Oh, and the other thing about this storyline? Basically, the Professor and Magneto aren't in it at all, because they've been trapped together on some prehistoric island where their powers don't work (and Charles can walk), and they're basically being BFFs and fighting dinosaurs. I don't THINK that would work in a movie context (I have the feeling that in the cartoon they just wanted to get them out of the way so they couldn't deus ex machina every storyline), but OMG FANDOM WOULD JUST EXPLODE.
Anyway, yeah... this is probably something people have said thousands of times already, but hey... I figured I should put it down. ;)
It's also actually making me think that a theory I came up with about Apocalypse may actually be... not far off. Now, as a disclaimer, I still haven't really engaged much with other fans in this fandom -- I've been reading fic on AO3, and I've started following a couple of tumblrs (though I have no content on my own), but I haven't really got into any in-depth discussions. So it is quite possible (probable even) that other people have been saying this for ages, and I'm well behind the times. But anyway.
So, a couple of days after we saw movie!DOFP, I turned to D and said, "You know, if First Class, in the 60s, was all about the cold war and approaches to civil rights, and DOFP in the 70s was all about drugs, then isn't the Big Issue in Apocalypse, set in the 80s, going to be some sort of HIV thing? Like some sort of plague that the humans will use to wrongfully demonise mutants?" But you know, I'm usually wrong about these things, so I didn't think much more about it until THAT EXACT STORYLINE turned up in the cartoon (the story is called "Time Fugitives"), as something that Apocalypse actually does as part of his quest for world domination/extermination. And it's even sort of done as a sequel to cartoon!DOFP (it doesn't come directly afterwards, but the "previously on..." spiel is all DOFP).
Oh, and the other thing about this storyline? Basically, the Professor and Magneto aren't in it at all, because they've been trapped together on some prehistoric island where their powers don't work (and Charles can walk), and they're basically being BFFs and fighting dinosaurs. I don't THINK that would work in a movie context (I have the feeling that in the cartoon they just wanted to get them out of the way so they couldn't deus ex machina every storyline), but OMG FANDOM WOULD JUST EXPLODE.
Anyway, yeah... this is probably something people have said thousands of times already, but hey... I figured I should put it down. ;)