6/3/01
 
 
 

all my heroes are whores
 
 
 
I'm going to start out by citing the reasons I do like X-Men Evolution (and not just because it means I'm not watching Mighty Morphin' Time Rangers, or whatever that show is). I like the show because, first off, it features Kurt Wagner; blue, furry sex god that he is. In fact, the show has most of MY personal faves from the X Universe; Kurt, Kitty Pryde, Mystique, and, of course, Wolverine. And I really like how they updated the looks of Jean Grey and Rogue. I like Storm's voice, I missed the "imperial goddess" voice. Halle Berry may be cute and sexy in leather, but she didn't have the Dignified Super-Goddess voice. And Wolverine! God, what a babe! Tone down the weird hair thing, add a couple inches to his height, make sure he doesn't start talking too much... and he's Clint Eastwood for Upstate New York...
 
 
 
 But this is what I have to give them the real credit for; the "Origins of Kurt" episode. Something the X-Men Comics have been dancing around for twenty years, and the TV show comes along, puts it together and wraps it up with a bow, in twenty minutes. And, surprisingly enough, do it well. No base sentimentalism, no playing for cheap thrills (except of course for the random fights that always break out), no easy way out (as they took in the Cauldron episodes, but I'm not talking about that). Just Kurt and Rogue talking about whether finding out who your birthparents are is worthwhile, or even traitorous to your adoptive ones. And I will love them forever for the moment they gave Mystique to reflect on all that she had lost by abandoning her son. In fact, the show hangs uneasy on that very point, because the enemies aren't worth hating. Not really. And how do you have an action cartoon where you feel slightly bad when you slap down, say, the Toad? The best they can do with the bad guys on that show is that they are annoying, pigheaded bullies. But does that warrant violent, apocalyptic confrontations?
 
 
Let's get to the good stuff, then. Why does the show annoy me? Let's see, is it because they destroy X-Men continuity? Nah, you couldn't put an oily finger on the X-Universe without destroying the damned continuity. Better to take what you want and make the rest up as you go. Like the movie and the cartoon, too. That's where the first cartoon got bogged down. I saw the episode where they explained that Rogue's superpowers (as opposed to her mutant powers) came from sucking the soul out of Ms Marvel (Please don't let me get started on Ms Marvel). If your reading all twenty thousand Marvel titles monthly (and bi-weekly, god knows, in some cases), this might approach some kind of sense. If you are, however, living in a world where every second person is NOT a superhero, it doesn't pan out so well.
 
 
Moving on, is it the Emma Frost-lessness that bothers me? Let's face it here, people, Mystique got stuck in the Emma Frost role. Who else put the dominatrix in world domination? But seriously, besides run around in her underwear, Emma was the head of the rival school for mutant teens. Though I really can't see Emma working for Magneto. But, from my understanding of the X-verse, that seems a trifle more likely than Mystique working for him. I see the downsides, of course, that without her penchant for terrorism (which is sorely missed) Mystique and Emma Frost are, sadly, interchangeable. And Emma is not blue, and would have made a third psychic, making confrontations between her and Professor X kind of, I want to say one-sided, but that's not the right phrase; it'd be more like watching a chess match when you expected kick-boxing. It would be boring.
 
 
Ok, what's left? Does their representation of Sabretooth as a demented homeless man with a superiority complex bug me? I have to say yes, but at least he talks in this version. I loved the movie to bits, but the Sabretooth!! Oh, if I had a heart it would be broken. What I wanted to see was him and Mystique trading jibes about their sex life. (Truly, I have no life of my own) They really are my favorite x-villains, alone or in tandem. But that's not it either.
 
 
s it the lobotomy they gave Kitty Pryde? The assumption that anyone cares about Cyclops? The fact that they fight among each other and don't really ever connect with the main point of X-Men, which is no matter how much you beat back Omega Red, the real enemy is the public, is your next door neighbor, the ordinary people who hate you because you're different? The fact that they only play the same three damn episodes in rotation?
 
 
No, my problem is much deeper than that. My problem is Spike. I hate Spike. I hate him because he has Marrow's powers and isn't remotely interesting. He is a mass marketing scheme to appeal to the X-Treme generation. And, being one of the X-Men, he's a mass marketing scheme within a mass marketing scheme. The thing is, I liked Marrow. She was a killer. She was in pain. She was a little girl who was trained to be a soldier. She had attitude problems. She nearly took out half the X-Men when she was bad and then nearly took out half the X-Men after she joined them. She worried about not being pretty while despising the idea that she had to worry about looks in the first place (sound familiar?). She wasn't out to please anyone, or make way for anyone. She hated everyone and everything. And she really got on Iceman's nerves. What's not to love? Ok, ok, she could be classified as a female Wolverine, but if you had to juggle being Wolverine and being a girl, might that be a struggle worth watching?
 
 
And then there's Spike. His childhood didn't suck. His attitude problems (and the show makes a big deal out of this) consist of being oblivious. He doesn't have a problem with authority, or at least not the kind of problem that escalates into a fight it takes three comic books to record. His problem with authority is the "forget what they tell you ten minutes after they leave" type, not the "wise-ass, stand on your own principles until they're kicked out from under you" type. The thing about Marrow is, she believed she could make it on her own, didn't believe in teamwork. She had to be won over. She was a soldier, not some snotty kid who thinks attracting Sabretooth's attention is a good idea.
 
 
My problem is they set Spike up to be the anti-hero, the cool guy, the action, all play and no work guy, when really, he's just not interesting enough to warrant that kind of attention. And with Kurt to play the class clown and the one most closed from society, Spike seems kind of redundant. And did I mention boring?
 
 
If I wanted my superheroes boring I would read Captain America.
 
 
 
 
Just thinking, today, that the other thing about the x-men is that they did not set out to be heroes- and that, for many of them, they would rather just be normal people, with normal lives. It's not a costume you can take off at the end of the day- it is a constant reminder of the things that you can't have- just because you were born different, some twist of fate, some genetic issue you can't help and you can't fix. Which is why, really, they strike such a deep cultural chord with people like me, who generally feel out of place...
   
   
   
 
 
 
 
 
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