Comic Book Wednesday: Wolverine and the X-Men

I recently discovered Wolverine and the X-Men, an animated kids show about the X-Men produced by Marvel Studios. I have already discussed why I love the X-Men, and being the sucker for anything X-Men that I am, I watched it, although I had some reservation at first because Wolverine is not my favorite character because I think he tends to be rather one note and boring. I mean, how many times can you do Weapon X and him not remembering his past and have it still be interesting? Once. The answer is once. Yet they still do it all the time.

Despite some early reservations, I still watched it, and it was awesome! I was hooked from the title sequence, which shows everything that I love about the X-Men: them fighting against human oppressors for the right of mutants to exist and live freely while also fighting against other mutants who wish ill upon humans. Pure awesome with a hint of dystopianism. Yes, Wolverine is leading the team, in a rather unusual move, but it doesn't really center on him, and they actually make his attempts to be a good leader, which goes against his loner nature, interesting, all the while also focusing on the various members of the team. I really never should have doubted Marvel Studios to make a great X-Men show.

What really makes it great is how much the creators care about the characters and their stories. All of the characters are spot on to the best part of the comics, with the team being made up of Wolverine, Cyclops, Shadowcat, Storm, Iceman, Beast, Emma Frost, and Rouge, with Nightcrawler, Angel, and Forge in recurring roles. This line-up is fairly similar to the Astonishing X-Men line-up, which is my personal favorite, so that's a plus. It also works really well, because it hits some of the major characters, without being bogged down by a too large team. Most of the other great characters make cameo appearances in roles that fit the character or harken back to their backstory, such as Gambit as a thief and Polaris as Magneto's daughter. Most of the secondary characters are also from the comics in one way or another, either from various X-Men teams, such as Psylocke, Domino, and Marrow, or from various other storylines, such as Dr. Rao and Tildy from Astonishing, who both make a brief appearance, and even a mention of the Morlocks and the Badlands, both classic X-Men stories. It is really rewarding as a fan of the comics to know who most of the minor characters are and to see some old favorites appear in cameos.

While the plot of the show is it's own distinct storyline, with Professor X working from a dystopian future to help Wolverine and his X-Men to prevent that future from happening, with the present is in the grips of Senator Kelly's mutant registration program and anti mutant fervor, it has shades of some of the great classic storylines, like "Days of Future Past" and "God Loves, Man Kills."It doesn't just retell old stories, but it does adopt some of the best parts of the best stories from the X-Men's history all combined with some of the best characters, which is really awesome, and helps to make the plot really compelling. The plot is also fairly complex and it takes some time to develop, with it taking several episodes at the beginning for the team to assemble, and plot points taking several episodes to pay off.

I think the X-Men are at their most compelling when they are fighting against human prejudice for the right to live their lives freely, which is one of the overriding themes of the show, with Senator Kelly's Mutant Registration Act and Sentinel Program being the overarching villain. This gives the characters purpose beyond just being superheroes and really makes them interesting, because they are fighting for basic civil rights and not just to save the planet, which they also do. This plot also allows Magneto's Genosha to play a role, which is nice because it let's Magneto be featured in several episodes without necessarily being a horrible villain they are always fighting. They certainly aren't on good terms with him, and he has some machinations happening in the background that are driving the plot, but they aren't fighting him every episode, which is good, because that's something that has been done so much as to be boring.

Bringing in Emma Frost as part of the team is great, because she's a really fun character to watch, but it wasn't something I was expecting to see, because part of what makes her so enjoyable is that she really isn't a particularly likable character, at least on the surface. She's the head bitch, who makes no attempts to get alone with the characters she doesn't like or to hid her distaste for some of the X-Men's practices. She's a former villain, but redeemed is not an adjetive anyone would use to describe her, which makes her really fun to read/watch, but not the prototypical animated kids show character. Having her on the team, and staying true to her character, including her rather skimpy outfit and cold demeanor, really shows that the creators of the series really love the X-Men and are in it for the stories and the characters rather than ratings.

All in all, I think Wolverine and the X-Men is an awesome show, and if you're anything like me, Imaginary Readers, and have a somewhat unhealthy obsession with everything related to the X-Men, I think you'll like it. If not, well, if you at all enjoy the X-Men or comic books, you should check it out. If you don't like/understand comics at all, and have no idea what I just spend 6 paragraphs talking about, you can skip it, but if you give it a chance, you might like it. The only think you have to lose is just under eight hours of your life, so it's up to you.

Catholic Nerd

This is so very true (via)

As I'm sure you have gathered by now, Imaginary Readers, I am somewhat of a nerd (this is an understatement) and I have a propensity to find something that you would think was impossible to nerd out about and then do so, such as PBS and NPR, Astrophysics, Organic Chemistry, and Newspeak, the fictional language for George Orwell's 1984. As I am also sure you know by now, Imaginary Readers, I owe the majority of my education to the Catholic Church, as I attended Catholic school for the entirety of my primary and secondary education, thirteen years in total (K-12) plus two years of pre-school at a local Lutheran church. I'm sure you can see where this is going. If not, I will elucidate (and yes, this was all an elaborate plan to work "elucidate" into a post): the current focus of my nerdy obsession is the Vatican, specifically the history and government of Vatican City and the preceding Papal States.  Why, you ask? I really have no idea.

I should explain that this was not just some random topic that I decided to spend several days reading about for no good reason. For my less than amazing lit class this semester we are required to give two multimedia group presentations on any topic pertaining to the class. We were assigned groups at the beginning of the semester and given dates. You now know as much about the assignment as I do. Anyways, my group of four got whittled down to two after the first three weeks resulted in people dropping the class, and my partner and I decided to do our first presentation on Vatican City, because it was one of the countries the class is looking at the week of our presentation (this upcoming week), and we didn't want to come up with anything more interesting/creative. For my part of this project I decided to do some basic background and the history of Vatican City, which is why I started reading about it yesterday. What I did not anticipate was being sucked down the rabbit hole of Church history, but I probably should have seen it coming.

More like 13 years, came out a gay agnostic, but close enough (via)

One of the main differences between a Catholic and a public education, at least between the schools I attended and the local public schools or the schools my friends attended, was that I was obligated to take religion classes, or, as my high school called them "Theology" classes. These ranged in scope from "Personal Christianity" (I'm still not sure what that means) and "Christianity in the Modern World" (read: social justice) to "Intro to Philosophy" and "Comparative World Religions" (both interesting classes taught by a scary old Christian Brother (sort of like teaching nuns but men, but not priests or monks - ordained but not cloistered) who compared Taoism to the Force from Star Wars). One thing that was a somewhat common theme in such classes, once they realized that they probably shouldn't teach us Scripture or the Catechism every year, was Church history, which I learned decently often, but never got old, simply because there is so much of it. I've always enjoyed Church history, simply because so much of it is either Roman or medieval European history, which I find fascinating to begin with. They only parts I didn't really enjoy was the Renaissance and pretty much everything after that until the 20th century, because really, once shit starts getting modern, I stop caring, history wise. And so, given an excuse to read about Church history once again, without having to take a class on it, I jumped right in where I left off in high school, and remembered why I liked it in the first place: it's a complex and integral part of European and Western history that is often overlooked and folded into European history/politics as a whole, when in fact, it drove quite a bit of said history/politics.

What I realized because of this, is that I'm kind of a Catholic nerd. I don't mean that I'm a nerd who is also Catholic, which is sort of true, but rather, one of the focuses of my nerdiness is the Catholic church. I sometimes forget that not everyone has the background I do, and thus, not everybody knows things about the Church/Catholicism that I consider basic. For example, Catholics are pretty much the only Christians who say the Hail Mary or pray the Rosary or use crucifixes in lieu of crosses, but I always forget that not all Christians are essentially Catholics without the Pope (that pretty much only applies to the Anglicans). I know far too much about the Catholic Church than is probably healthy, especially considering that I don't practice, nor does my family anymore. And I find all of it fascinating. I find the Tradition, the Catechism, the history and politics of the Church, and the specifics of the the Theology really interesting even though I don't really believe any of it. The only part of it I don't really enjoy is Scripture, and I don't know the Bible very well, outside of having read the Gospels and Acts (and Revelation like any good angst middle schooler at a Catholic school) and have a vague sense of where important bits are from. Frankly, I know the history of the Bible better than I know the Bible itself, but that isn't unusual because the Catholics aren't big on actually reading it, and I never had to memorize passages or anything like that.

I am continually amazed by my ability to find random and obscure things to nerd out about, because I never though I would be far more engaged in a relatively unimportant project about the Vatican than any other project or paper I've done this year. I guess I should except that I will always care far too much about the Catholic Church and embrace my inner Catholic nerd, although it feels kind of like I'm giving in to every religion teacher I've ever had and admitting that they're right, this stuff is actually kind of interesting after all.

Family Ties

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My great uncle died last week, which, because I had only met him once or twice and am not really all that upset when old sick people die anyways, meant awkward family time at his wake and funeral this week. Usually I am not required to go to my parent's aunts and uncles funerals due to a general never having met them/am too far removed for it to matter if I'm there or not, but this particular great uncle was [MaternalUnit]'s god father and she was close to him/some of his 13 kids. This meant that, out of family obligation and a respectful showing of support, I couldn't dodge both the wake and funeral. I chose the wake, because it was in the evening so I could go, plus, wakes, in my quite limited experience, are less awkward than funerals, and it is more acceptable not to be outwardly sad. There really is nothing more awkward, I think, than being at a funeral for someone you didn't/barely knew and having people who actually did know them crying all around you. I am not a sympathetic cryer, and being one of the only dry eyes in the house is not really that enjoyable.

I spent most of the time we were actually at the wake milling around with [SisterBot] and meeting people I had never met before but was apparently related to. Lots of first cousins once removed and second cousins. Even a couple second cousins once removed. As I mentioned before, this family had 13 kids, most, if not all, of whom are married with kids of their own, of which, I had met three or four prior to this event, so there were a lot of people there. They had even made name tags with their relation to the deceased so people knew who they were, because there were so many of them, which did help me keep people straight.

The whole thing made me realize how much I've pulled away from my family recently, distancing myself from my parents in particular. I've never been particularly close with my immediate family, but, in high school, I had a fairly good relationship with my parents. To the extent that I tell people things, I told [MaternalUnit] a decent amount, and we used to play cards until two in the morning on a regular basis. I didn't really have close friends in high school, so I was pretty much always at home, having nowhere else to be, and I would spend time with my parents in lieu of anything else to do. My siblings are a different matter, as [BrotherBorg] and I have always butted heads in a fairly standard sibling way, and up until recently, [SisterBot] and I rarely spoke despite our adjoining bedrooms. I'm really similar to both of them in very different ways, but the age difference, I'm the oldest by four years, and normal sibling politics kept us from being very close. And that's pretty much how it always was, through high school, and even for my first semester of college, when I would see them nearly every weekend for one thing or another, although I rarely stayed the night at home.

I first noticed a shift away from that paradigm this past summer, when I was at home for break with nothing to do due to my persistant unemployment, although I think it probably started last spring, and it has carried through this year. I don't really want to be at home anymore, and when I am, I spend my time either in my room or, weather permitting, walking around my neighborhood. I don't really talk to my parents much at all anymore, outside of when necessary when I'm home and my weekly phone call at school. When I'm home, I just want to be left alone, and I have very little patience for [MaternalUnit] and [BrotherBorg], which leads to more guilt from [MaternalUnit] and arguments with [BrotherBorg]. It's not their fault, really, it's me, and I don't really know why, other than this being the normal teenage process of pulling away from family that I'm just experiencing a little bit later than most. The more independence I have at school the more I miss it when I'm at home, and the closer I get to my friends the father I get from my family. It's gotten to the point that I don't look forward to school breaks anymore, outside of the extra sleep and stress relief that comes with not having homework, because I don't enjoy sitting at home doing nothing for long periods of time anymore.

The funny thing about all of this is that I've gotten a lot closer with [SisterBot] over the past year. Ever since she realized that I would drive her places when I'm home, we've started talking a lot more, and when I'm home, we hang out in her room and talk when we both happen to be in the house at once. Every time we talk, I'm amazed by how similar we are in both temperament and personality, despite have somewhat different social experiences. I always thought that we couldn't be more different because the social stuff is so easy for her and so difficult for me, but I'm realizing that despite that, we have a lot more in common than I thought.

I know that most of this is pretty normal, and if I just give myself some time and space from my family, I'll end up getting closer to them again eventually. I just want to be able to do that without offending someone or having everything blow up in my face. If someone gets mad, it will either be [MaternalUnit] or [BrotherBorg], I'm not sure which, and I don't want that to happen, but I also don't really want to have to spend a lot of time with them right now, for all of our sakes. Their family, and I love them and always will, and family's important, I just don't really want to be in the middle of it right now.

Roses Are A Variety of Different Colors

Yesterday was Valentine's Day. Given my complete and utter lack of a life, combined with the sheer amount of work I have to do this week, I didn't do anything different than my normal Tuesday night, which involves sitting at the library doing homework. I did end up at my friends' place later, but that had to do our long and convoluted saga of figuring out housing for next year, which is thankfully drawing to a close.

Valentine's Day need's more fractals (via)

I don't really have any feelings about Valentine's Day in general. It's not one of my favorite holidays because I've never had any cause to celebrate it (much like Arbor Day), but at the same time, I don't hate it. Although I've always been single in February, I'm not bitter about being single and I like idea that we have a holiday dedicated to romance and people in love. Deep down in my heart of hearts, under all of the neuroses and insecurities, I'm kind of a romantic, although I don't show it really at all. I've always wanted to go all out for Valentine's, the whole nine yards, with flowers and a fancy dinner and all of it. When, eventually, I am in a relationship over Valentine's, that's what I want to do. Life is too short to bitch about consumerism and heteronormativity and all those other things bitter people use to justify hating Valentine's Day (my spell check doesn't recognize 'heteronormativity' and I cannot tell you how happy that makes me). And it's also too short to be bitter about what you don't have rather than happy with what you do have.

All that being said, yesterday (Valentine's Day) bummed me out way more than I anticipated. Seeing all of the Valentine's stuff everywhere and all the couples stuff made me think about everything that happened last semester with [Львица], which doesn't really bother me in and of itself anymore, but it did bring out pretty much all of my insecurities surrounding it again. The irrational, insecure part of myself was in full swing, and I couldn't help but think about all the thinks that I think I did wrong. Like, somehow, if I had just been more communicative, if I had been able to open up and really talk about the serious and important stuff things would have been different. I suspect that that's not the case, but I can't change the way that I feel, or that I will always have insecurities. Frankly, thinking about what happened bothered me less than the fact that three months later, it still bothers me. It is true, that most of the time, I'm fine with all of it. I'm not sure I've moved on completely, but I am okay with everything that happened. But I still have bad days, where, for whatever reason, I'm sad and lonely and feel like I can't connect with anyone in a meaningful way, although they happen less now, to the point where it's occurring at a rate that is probably about average for everyone, and can no longer actually be linked to the events of last semester. I think it's less that it happened now and more that it's an easy thing for me to fixate on when I'm in that type of mood.

Frankly, it probably wasn't even the fact that it was Valentine's Day that was bumming me out, as much as that it just happened to be a bad day due to a handful of other mitigating factors like that fact that it hasn't been sunny very much lately and that it was a Tuesday. I have noticed lately that the weather has a real effect of my mood, to the point where if it's overcast and gloomy for a week, I am much more tired and much more likely to have sad/lonely/insecure days than when it's sunny. This dank, February weather with the constant clouds, or at least it seems that way, has not been good for me, which definitely could contribute to yesterday's gloominess of mind. As for Tuesdays, they just suck. Tuesday is by far the worst day of the week for me, for no discernible reason. As far as my schedule goes, it's not bad, but for whatever reason, if I have a noticeably bad day, 7 times out of 10 it is a Tuesday. This isn't to say that every Tuesday is bad, because plenty of them are just fine, but they do seem to be overrepresented among the days of the week when it comes to days I feel shitty and hate myself.

What I'm saying here, is that I was bummed out yesterday and was definitely at a local minimum in the function that is my self esteem, and yesterday was also Valentine's Day, but there were also a series of other factors that could have lead to said bad mood. I almost felt worse that I felt bad about a breakup on Valentine's Day than I did about anything else, because it is so cliched that it made me want to scream. I like my life right now, and I really have nothing to complain about. Today was a lot better, which just confirms my suspicions that Tuesdays have it out for me (assuming an abstract concept like the days of the week could actually have it out for someone, but I think we all know than can...And now I sound super paranoid. I'm really in for it if Arbor Day is on a Tuesday this year...)

Historical Science Fiction

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I am an aficionado of science fiction, because I think that it explores ideas and situations that bring out humanity but cannot yet be experienced by humanity, because of the constrains of current technology and physics. I am also a fan of history, particularly of the ancient Roman and medieval varieties, because I think that it is cool and super interesting. I generally enjoy the concept of historical fiction, but I have a hard time actually reading it, because I think that it tends to focus on periods I don't care about, such as any period after 1400 AD, or, alternately, is super dense and boring. I feel like this situation could easily be rectified by creating a hybrid of the two, which would be superior to either, hence, historical science fiction, which I think should be a distinct genre, and unfortunately, is not.

Historical science fiction is based on taking historical events and giving them a science fiction twist, such as aliens or time travel, but the history always has to work out as to not disturb the current timeline. This isn't just the adventures of timetravelers in history, because that's been done, but rather, taking common science fiction tropes and applying them to historical events rather than modern or futuristic ones. If there are timetravelers, they should be based in an historical era exploring the current future or the past relative to them rather than a modern or futuristic timetravelers exploring the past relative to us.

To properly illustrate the use of historical science I have included some examples of stories that would illustrate the genre, if it were a thing:

1. Historical Premise (True Facts):

Julius Caesar was kidnapped by pirates when he was young and ransomed back to Rome.

Sci-Fi Twist (Untrue Part):

He is kidnapped by space pirates and proceeds to hone his political and strategic abilities through a series of adventures in space battling alien empires and navigating the machinations of the lawless and ambitious of the space pirate crew he has become a part of. He eventually returns to Rome to become the Julius Caesar we all know and love today.

2. Historical Premise:

Alexander the Great conquers most of the known world and half of the unknown world as well.

Sci-Fi Twist:

Alexander is the scion of a vast, but waning alien empire, but he is a rebel, with no desire to play by the space empire rules. He is punished by being forced to live as a puny human at a time when technology was seriously lacking compared to his native peoples' cross dimensional tech. He proceeds to use his training as a space conqueror to be a badass and conquer everything he can. He proves himself to be a good general and decent leader, and is thus reclaimed by his people to take his rightful place as their leader and bring a second wind to their empire.

3. Historical Premise:

Joan of Arc

Sci-Fi Twist:

Is a robot. Possibly from the future or from space or just a complete fluke of nature/technology.

These are just some of the many possible examples of the genre. I mostly want to stress that this is not something like the History Channel's obsession with ancient aliens, because that is a conspiracy theory that claims that aliens actually did influence ancient cultures (which is unfortunate because it assumes that ancient people were incapable of amazing feats of engineering and construction because they were primitive, and thus, stupid, which discounts their ability and knowledge. Just because we don't know how they did it, doesn't mean they couldn't have done it.) whereas HSF assumes a fictional stance from the beginning, and uses science fiction premises to explore human and historical issues. It is also not steampunk, because that tends more towards a specific aesthetic and restricts the time period rather than using history as a science fiction playground.

With those stipulations in place, I think this should be a thing, but I'm not a creative writer, nor do I have any desire to be one, so, Imaginary Readers, go forth and make this happen. It will be awesome, I am sure.