Author: UncaScroogeMcD

Last week I began my critique of the movie X-Men: The Last Stand, which is large part an adaptation of Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s “Dark Phoenix Saga.”  I’ve also been comparing and contrasting the movie with Claremont’s own novelization of the film for Del Rey.  And now I come to Jean Grey’s first appearance as Phoenix in the film.

In the film Scott encounters Jean alive at Alkali Lake, the site of her seeming demise in the previous movie, X2. The filmmakers have Jean remove Scott’s protective glasses, holding back the optic beams, as Claremont and Byrne did in the mesa scene in the comics.  Scott and Jean kiss.  In the novel Claremont presents this as a love scene, a “perfect moment” albeit with an undercurrent of danger.  In the movie the sequence seems ominous rather than ecstatic.

Then, in the movie, something happens to Scott offscreen.  Wolverine later finds Scott’s glasses at Alkali Lake, but Scott is nowhere to be seen.  When Jean thinks back to what happened, she is deeply disturbed, but the flashes of memory that we are shown still do not reveal Scott’s fate.  But Claremont’s narrator explicitly states in the novel that Scott is dead.

The implication in the movie, made somewhat clearer in the book, is that Jean/Phoenix’s sexual passion for Scott literally consumed him.  Consider how the filmmakers have transformed Claremont and Byrne’s mesa scene.  In the comics, it was a touching love scene; in the comics it becomes a scene from a horror film.  How many horror films have there been in which the young lovers get killed as soon as they have sex, as if they were being punished?  In the comics version, sex is good; in the movie version, sex is bad. 

Why kill off Cyclops? An article by Kate Aurthur in the March 14, 2006 New York Times, “As the Plot Thickens, No One Is Safe,” about the deaths  in television series such as 24 demonstrates that the current trend of killing off regular characters isn’t limited to comics with “Crisis” in their title.  Surely the filmmakers would justify Cyclops’ death to show just how dangerous Phoenix is.

On the other hand, for months it has been rumored that Fox decreed Cyclops’s demise in order to punish actor James Marsden, who played him, for going to work on Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns movie.  Corporate vengeance isn’t a satisfactory explanation for artistic decisions.

To my mind, the death of Cyclops comes off as a confession of the filmmakers’ creative failures with the character in all three of the X-Men movies. The directors, screenwriters and actor are surely all to blame.

However popular Wolverine may be with filmgoers and comics readers, Scott and Jean should be the lead characters in any X-Men movies in which they appear. 

The movies have not presented Cyclops as a strong leader, nor have they captured the tragic aspect of his inability to control his power.  Not only does Cyclops’s problem resemble Rogue’s inability to touch other people, but it even parallels Wolverine’s struggle against his berserker tendencies.  All of them are trying to cope with the monster within them: their own counterparts to Dark Phoenix.

Certainly the movies have failed to dramatize the love between Scott and Jean.  Anyone who knows these characters only from the movies must wonder why Jean stayed with Scott and resisted the overtures from Wolverine.

So here the filmmakers have an opportunity to present a real love scene between Scott and Jean, evoking the celebrated mesa scene from the comics, and they failed again.  Whereas in the book Claremont turns the Alkali Lake reunion into a last hurrah for their romance, in the movie it is only a creepy set-up for an offscreen killing.

And just why is it offscreen?  Is it because if they show Jean destroying Scott onscreen it will be less shocking when she destroys Xavier onscreen later?  Or did the filmmakers want to save on their special effects budget?  I have begun to wonder whether many of Last Stand‘s failings in dramatizing the “Dark Phoenix Saga”  result from simple unwillingness to spend the money.  When Scott arrived at Alkali Lake, I was excited to see the waters churning.  But then we did not get to see Jean rise out of the waters, as she so memorably did in her debut as Phoenix in X-Men #100.  And how come we never get to see the movie Jean surrounded by Phoenix’s symbol, the bird composed of cosmic flame, not even once?  One might have thought the filmmakers would have done it for marketing reasons, if nothing else: think of what that fiery bird would have looked like in a poster or the trailer.

Actress Halle Berry openly complained about how little she had to do in the first two X-Men movies.  Removing Cyclops, and later Professor X, from the Last Stand plot early on enables Storm and Wolverine to move into the roles of team leaders.  In comics or film, “The Dark Phoenix Saga” runs the risk of being interpreted as arguing that women can’t control their own passions or powers.  Hence, it’s fortunate that Storm, a powerful woman, does successfully assert herself as a leader in Last Stand.  Claremont’s X-Men in the 1970s and 1980s were pioneering feminist works in mainstream comics;  he’s certainly no misogynist.

As for Wolverine, I’ve seen some comments from viewers who think that he isn’t aggressive enough in Last Stand.  I don’t have a problem with that.  In the comics, especially in the original 1982 Wolverine limited series, Claremont developed the character into someone who could with effort master his inner demons.   Watching the movie, I thought the side of Wolverine’s personality that can be wise, and even fatherly towards younger X-Men like Kitty, came across, and that this was appropriate for the third film in the trilogy.

I appreciate Claremont’s invocation of the classic science fiction film Forbidden Planet (exactly a half century old this year) with its “monster from the id” as a parallel to his own “Dark Phoenix Saga” later in  Chapter Four (p. 97).

In both the movie and book Xavier explains to Wolverine and Storm that when Jean was a child he created “psychic barriers”: to prevent her from utilizing her full powers until she could cope with them.  (In the comics Xavier did the same thing to prevent Jean from using the telepathy that had traumatized her as a child.  Eventually he removed those barriers.  The movie Jean is apparently around thirty, and Xavier had not released the barriers, though they were already beginning to collapse in X2.  Would she ever have been ready to master her full powers?) 

As a result of the psychic barriers, Xavier explains, Jean developed a repressed alternate personality, the Phoenix, which he describes as “A purely instinctual creature, all desire, and joy. . .and rage” (p. 98).

 

In the movie and novel there is no “Phoenix force” either as an external source of cosmic energy or as a sentient entity.  That’s fine with me.  Even in the comics, Phoenix really is a metaphor for Jean’s ultimate potential, and Dark Phoenix is a metaphor for the dark side of her psyche. 

Dark Phoenix is Jean’s alternate personality, as Mr. Hyde was Dr. Jekyll’s, and the Hulk is Bruce Banner’s.

I was pleased that in the movie Xavier did not simply define Phoenix as evil, but adopted Claremont’s more complex description.  But why then does the movie never show us the “joy” in Phoenix?  Over at John Byrne’s online forum (www.byrnerobotrics.com), former Marvel editor Glenn Greenberg observed that “We get no sense of how she feels about her newfound strength and power, the joy she must be feeling. She never REVELS in it, as she did in the comic stories.” 

Back in 1987 several Marvel staffers, freelancers and I went to see the dreadful movie Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.  We were all aghast,  pointing out mistake after mistake. (Superman just carried Mariel Hemingway’s character into outer space!  Shouldn’t she asphyxiate?  Or freeze to death? Or explode in the vacuum?  Why is she still alive?)  I realized back then that any of us were capable of finding the flaws in the script more effectively than the filmmakers, who made a lot more money than we did.  This is still true about superhero movies.  What if Glenn had been able to comment on the screenplay before it was filmed? (Or John? Or Chris?)

Wolverine is outraged at Xavier’s revelation of having manipulated Jean’s mind. (It’s as if Xavier played Mastermind’s role in this version of “The Dark Phoenix Saga.”) Knowing from personal experience whereof he speaks, Wolverine thunders that “sometimes when you ‘cage the beast,’ the beast gets angry” (p. 99).  Here’s a question that the movie never resolves.  Did Xavier’s well-intentioned effort to suppress Jean’s full powers actually turn her into Dark Phoenix?  Considering the havoc that Jean wreaks as Phoenix in the movie, Wolverine eventually decides Xavier was right, and so did I.

It’s clever that the screenwriters have Dr. Rao derive the “cure” for mutation from Leech, a mutant boy from the comics whose power is that he negates the powers of other mutants in his proximity.  Some fan comments I’ve read about Last Stand disparage such references to the comics continuity, but I like bits like Leech’s role in the film.  Even though most moviegoers will have never heard of Leech before, the movie uses him well and imaginatively.  Elements taken from the comics aren’t “trivia” if they are given purpose in the film. The scene in which the Beast’s hand reverts to furless human form as he reaches towards Leech is a nice touch, as is the Beast’s reaction, considering the possibility of becoming “normal” himself.

The government “weaponizes” the “cure” in order to use it against criminal mutants.  Dr. Rao’s presence in the movie makes it clear that the screenwriters derived the “cure” concept from Joss Whedon and John Cassaday’s Astonishing X-Men comics series.  But the “weaponized” cure reminds me of Forge’s neutralizer device from Claremont’s X-Men comics, which the federal government used as a weapon.  Government agent Henry peter Gyrich tried to use it on Rogue but fired it at Storm instead, depriving her of her mutant powers, seemingly permanently. (See Uncanny X-Men #185, from 1984.  Eventually, with Forge’s aid, she regained them.)  Were Last Stand‘s screenwriters aware of this storyline?  

The imprisoned Mystique’s use of her shapeshifting powers to impersonate the President and an innocent child makes for a visually striking and inventive scene, but it makes no sense.  She’s behind bars in a prison truck.  Of course the guard knows the “resident” and the “little girl” are really her!

I was impressed by Magneto’s turning his powers against the convoy of prison vehicles.  In the comics Magneto is capable of conjuring an electromagnetic pulse that affects the entire Earth.  The movie Magneto isn’t that powerful, but it’s about time that the films showed him performing such major feats.  Later on he effortlessly shunts automobiles out of his way, and what he does to the Golden Gate Bridge is truly spectacular.

It doesn’t bother me that the movie uses Jamie Madrox, the Multiple Man, as a villain:  the special effects used to multiply him into numerous figures create just the sense of wonder that special effects should.  It’s a clever stunt to have him multiply himself to impersonate Magneto’s entire mutant army, later on.

As for the Juggernaut, the movie proves that a real life strongman can’t possibly match one’s expectations for the massive, tank-like figure designed by Jack Kirby in the comics.  Despite occasional blunders by comics writers, the comic book Juggernaut is not a mutant: he derived his powers from magic.  In the comics he’s also Charles Xavier’s stepbrother.  The movie doesn’t mention Juggernaut’s mystical origin, and implies he’s another mutant.  That’s all right with me.  The movie gets something more important right:  the dialogue asserts that once he gets some momentum going, the Juggernaut is unstoppable.  That’s exactly right, despite the fact that comics writers lately seem to think of him as no more than a strongman.

The movie also doesn’t establish that its Juggernaut is related to Xavier.  And I was taken aback on hearing the movie Juggernaut’s British accent.  But in retrospect, I like it.  Xavier is played by a Brit, Patrick Stewart, and so is the Juggernaut.  Could this be the filmmakers’ way of hinting at a connection between them, even if it’s unstated?  (On the other hand, if the moviemakers cared about such things, why didn’t they have Colossus speak with his Russian accent from the comics?)

In her recent appearance on Late Show with David Letterman, actress Rebecca Romijn vehemently denied the conventional wisdom that she wears only blue body paint as Mystique; she contended that she also wears a lot of prosthetics, and compared her Mystique “costume” to a bikini.  (I still do mental double takes at the fact that Letterman now talks about X-Men characters on network TV.)  Well, in the Last Stand, Mystique is the first mutant to be injected with the “cure,” and the blue body paint and prosthetics disappear.

I have tried to maintain a dignified approach to sexual matters in “Comics in Context,” but I have noticed of late that certain women who write prominent comics blogs (namely you, Heidi and Colleen), have no qualms about openly lusting over certain male movie actors.  So I am adjusting my policy somewhat. I am happy to declare that Ms. Romijn’s appearance sans blue paint or anything else in Last Stand is one of the movie’s high points.

Jean/Phoenix regains consciousness at Xavier’s mansion and starts coming on to Wolverine, a. k. a. Logan.  In the book Claremont tells us that “Before this moment, Logan had never known the true meaning and nature of love. . .what he found here. . .was intimacy” (pgs. 128-129).  How about that? Logan must have discovered sex long ago, but here’s a scene in which he psychologically and emotionally loses his virginity.

It was established long ago in the comics that Wolverine was attracted to Jean, but his crush on her soon gave way to his deep love for Mariko Yashida (in Claremont and Byrne’s Uncanny X-Men #118-119 in 1979).  The idea that Jean reciprocated Wolverine’s feelings is a relatively recent development.  Strangely, in later years Claremont has lately been contributing to this notion, as he does in this novel.  In doing so, he undercuts the love between Scott and Jean, which he wrote so well, especially in the original “Dark Phoenix Saga.”

For example, in the novel he tells us that “she’d made her commitment to Scott, much as either of them” – Jean and Logan – “might wish differently” (p. 128).  That doesn’t read like a heartfelt commitment, does it?  It suggests that Jean really wants Wolverine, and the only thing that stops her is that she doesn’t want to break her word to Scott.

Later on, the novel states that “Scott was love, Logan was passion” (p. 228).  And just what do you think that Scott’s powerful, unstoppable, uncontrollable optic beams symbolize, if not his inner passion?

Still later, Jean fantasizes about wearing a minidress or leather. “Scott, she knew, would have loved the mini. And been tempted by the leather. Logan, she knew, cared nothing for the trappings.  He loved her” (p. 233). Now this is too much.  This is saying that Scott’s love for Jean is merely superficial, maybe just a matter of physical attraction, and that it is Logan who truly loves her. 

The Scott-Jean-Logan triangle has a precedent in Marvel history.  Remember the Reed Richards-Sue Storm-Namor the Sub-Mariner triangle in the early years of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s Fantastic Four? Namor too represented “passion” more openly than did Reed.  But Sue chose “love” and married Reed, and now it is inconceivable that she could have chosen Namor instead.  And if you think that Reed, the seemingly stuffy scientist, lacks passion, reread Lee and Kirby’s Fantastic Four Annual #6, in which his teammates are astonished by his intense emotions in trying to save the lives of Sue and his unborn son.

There may be a generational shift occurring here, whereby many of today’s comics fans and writers no longer understand or appreciate the classic Stan Lee hero, who in his private life is introverted, brooding, but dedicated to a heroic moral code.  At his online forum, “Dark Phoenix Saga” co-creator John Byrne asserts that “Straight-shooter, decent, even noble Scott Summers has long been out of favor” with both current comics fans and pros because “He’s not ‘cool’ like Wolverine.”  I’m on Byrne’s side here.

Claremont writes an interesting line when Xavier next encounters Magneto:  Xavier “had considered” his former friend Magneto “his other half, the passion to his intellect” (p. 141).  It’s as if Magneto were Xavier’s own “Dark Phoenix.”

Claremont insightfully notes that though Jean is “a grown woman, a kind and generous soul, yet on the levels she was reaching” – now that the Phoenix power overwhelms her rationality -  “she was still mainly the child he’d” – Xavier had – “met so many years before” (p. 147).  Claremont is attempting to explain Jean’s mental condition; the movie just makes her seem to be a one-dimensional menace. 

In both the comics and the movie, Xavier and Phoenix engage in a psychic duel, in which Xavier attempts to restore the dominance of Jean’s “normal” personality.  In the comics he succeeded, and Claremont makes clear it is because part of Jean wanted him to.  In the movie Jean obliterates Xavier’s body.  Online film critic James Berardinelli considers Xavier’s demise to be “one of the film’s most poignant elements” (http://www.movie-reviews.colossus.net/movies/x/x-men3.html).  I think it comes off as a crass shock effect.  The filmmakers don’t seem to care much about Xavier’s demise: Storm’s eulogy for Xavier is followed by a fun-and-games scene of Iceman and Kitty skating on ice he has created.  To his credit, Claremont gives the skating scene a more melancholy tone, showing the two kids’ succeeding only “just a little” in overcoming their “sorrow” (p. 167).

Just why Jean leaves with Magneto after killing Xavier is a mystery to moviegoers.  Claremont finds an explanation:  “She was trembling, unable to speak, likely not even fully aware of who he was” (p. 156).  Presumably the buried, “good” side of Jean is so appalled at what Dark Phoenix has done that she has retreated into a state of shock.

But just how long does this walking catatonia last?  From this point on, till the climax of the movie, Dark Phoenix, the most dangerous being in the universe, basically just stands around staring into space.  (I suddenly find myself thinking of the Monty Python episode in which the world tries to find and battle the omnipowerful Mr. Neutron, who is harmlessly having tea at a suburban household.)

Here’s the moviemakers’ dilemma.  Jean knows full well from past experience that Magneto is a bad guy and should realize that he is just trying to exploit her.  So once she goes into action, if she already annihilated Xavier, she’d probably do the same thing to Magneto.  Dark Phoenix is no man’s pawn; she’s out to satisfy only her own urges.

Moreover, Dark Phoenix is way more unstoppable even than the Juggernaut.  If she wanted to eliminate the mutant “cure,” no one could stop her from disintegrating Leech, Dr. Rao, a battalion of soldiers, or all of San Francisco.  To do the “Dark Phoenix Saga” right, even if it never leaves Earth, would require a lot more special effects sequences than the moviemakers seemingly wanted to do. 

So, in effect, halfway through the movie, the filmmakers put “The Dark Phoenix Saga” on hold while they attend to other business. 

How could they have better justified Dark Phoenix doing nothing for so long?  How many of you know Steve Englehart and Frank Brunner’s classic Dr. Strange storyline involving Sise-Neg, a sorcerer who takes on godlike power (in Marvel Premiere #13 and 14 in 1974)?  Doctor Strange and his sinister rival, Baron Mordo, play Sise-Neg’s good and bad angels, in effect:  Strange attempts to persuade Sise-Neg to use his great powers for good, while Mordo tempts him towards evil.  In the comics Mastermind served as the tempter figure in “The Dark Phoenix Saga.”

What if Dark Phoenix, in possession of her godlike powers, was uncertain what to do next, and the screenwriters gave Magneto scenes in which he concocted arguments to tempt her to follow his lead?  Ian McKellen is renowned for his portrayal of Shakespeare’s Richard III, who, in one of the play’s most famous scenes, seduces Lady Anne, the widow of a man he murdered.  Imagine scenes in which Magneto played upon Dark Phoenix’s emotions, turning her away from Xavier’s dream, and seducing her to his vision of war on humanity.  Why hire Ian McKellen to play Magneto without giving him a dramatic opportunity like this? But rather than a full-fledged “persuasion scene,” there is merely the brief exchange on pages 172 and 173.  (Think of another film in which the master villain tempts a heroic figure to the “dark side”:  George Lucas’s Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith.  Its temptation scenes aren’t fully convincing, but demonstrate what Last Stand could have done.  See “Comics in Context” #86.)

On the other hand, McKellen has a wonderful moment when Pyro badmouths “the professor,” and Magneto regally, sternly replies, “The professor was my friend!” (p. 174).

Sequences that follow demonstrate the various ways in which the mutant metaphor can be interpreted.  Pyro’s attack on a clinic that administers the “cure” for mutation makes me think of the bombings of abortion clinics.  In the novel Claremont establishes that the clinic is in Lower Manhattan, the area of the World Trade Center attacks.  In the post-9/11 world, Magneto’s televised threats to the world evoke Osama bin Laden’s videotaped messages of defiance to the West.

From my childhood I recall Frank Fontaine’s Crazy Guggenheim telling Jackie Gleason’s Joe the Bartender week after week on Gleason’s TV program, “I was just hangin’ around.  I wasn’t doin’ nothin.’”  This has become the cinematic Dark Phoenix’s goal in life.  When Wolverine, spying on Magneto, is captured by him, Jean continues to stand around, staring into space, not acting like someone who allegedly loves Logan.  In the novel Claremont tries to make sense of this behavior and to generate reader empathy for Jean: after Magneto magnetically hurls Wolverine miles away, “knowing how he” – Logan – “felt. . .about her,” Jean “wept” (p. 211).

I’m confused.  Has Jean reverted to her normal personality?  Then why didn’t she intervene to help Wolverine?  Why wouldn’t she return to her friends, the X-Men, to seek help?  Is she ashamed to face them, after what she did to Scott and Xavier?

Claremont seems to be striving to find a reason why Jean would stay with Magneto in the movie.  Earlier Claremont indicated that Dark Phoenix sympathizes with his effort to destroy the “cure” (p. 203). 

Twenty-five pages later, though, as Jean’s conscience seems to have reawakened, she again appears to know that Magneto is the enemy.   Claremont has Jean fearing that she’d lose control and harm other X-Men if she returned to them.  Hence, “Better, she decided, to be a potential threat to Magneto.  Serve him right if things went wrong” (p. 228).

I’m not convinced by either argument.  Infatuated with her own powers, the Dark Phoenix of the comics would not care about the causes of what she would consider “lesser” beings.  If Jean’s normal personality is reemerging, then why wouldn’t she just head off to some mountaintop, where she wouldn’t harm anyone, instead of remaining allied with Magneto?  (Do we all remember that Magneto attempted to wipe out the entire human race at the end of the previous movie, X2?)

Last Stand presents a conundrum.  The movie rarely lets us into Jean/Phoenix’s thoughts, so, apart from a few moments, she comes across as one-dimensionally mad and evil. and fails to arouse much sympathy.

In the novel, on the other hand,  Claremont delves into Jean’s “normal” personality and succeeds in engaging the reader’s empathy for her, but then it becomes harder to understand why she commits such atrocities as the killing of Xavier and Cyclops.

This is an important point.  In the comics Claremont and Byrne originally intended that their “Dark Phoenix Saga” would end with Jean being stripped of her mutant powers. Not only would she then be like an ordinary human, but, as Claremont has argued, it would figuratively be like she was blind, having been deprived of her extra sense: her ability to read other people’s thoughts.  But editor in chief Jim Shooter decreed that she had to pay more severely for Dark Phoenix’s crimes, even though Claremont contended that she was innocent by reason of insanity. That’s why in the comics Phoenix ended up taking her own life.

The movie fails in humanizing Jean, to show how Xavier could regard her as embodying hope (as Claremont puts it on page 228).  But does the novel succeed in making clear how that admirable, heroic Jean could be overwhelmed by the forces of her own subconscious, as the comics had made evident (to me, if not to Shooter)?

Claremont’s Chapter Nine isn’t an adaptation of the movie:  it consists of scenes that should have been in the movie, but aren’t.

Jean recalls how Xavier watched over her as a child following their initial meeting.  Claremont reveals who the original X-Men were in the movies’ alternate continuity – Jean, Scott, Storm and Beast – and has Jean fondly remember her friendship with the latter two.  Claremont shows us what went through Jean’s mind as she willingly sacrificed her life to save the other X-Men at the end of X2, and simultaneously felt her Phoenix powers emerging.  He also suggests briefly what it might feel like for Jean’s normal personality to be temporarily surfacing above the flood of Dark Phoenix’s passions:  “Within, though, she trembled like a child quailing in the face of parental rage, so terrorized by the force of the wave of emotions breaking over them that the only outlet is barely coherent tears” (p. 229).

All of this should make readers, even those who do not know her from the comics, empathize with Jean, and understand the value of the woman who is being submerged beneath Dark Phoenix’s insanity.

 

Jean remembers her vision of “the far greater All that awaited her,”  the godlike potential that her full powers give her, and the narrator tells us “that she had reached that point in fate where she must prove herself able to act on her own” yet she is like a “child” who wants to “run when barely able to stand” (p. 232-233).  Can Jean control her raging subconscious? “I could just be mad,” she gloomily thinks. (p, 233). 

Then, in one of the high points of the novel, Claremont does what all three X-Men films failed to do:  to dramatize the love between Scott and Jean.  Claremont creates a scene from Scott and Jean’s past, a billiards game that they played, using their powers, on a night in San Francisco, which becomes one of the most intense moments in their romance.  “He was strong and confident, tempered by the wounds and losses he’d suffered in his life, made whole by the love he felt for her.  And she in return had felt an aching need that drove her around the table and into his arms for a kiss she wanted to last forever” (p. 241).

I told you that Claremont wrote the Scott-Jean romance well!  After this chapter it is even harder for me to take seriously the revisionist idea that Jean loves Wolverine as much as she does Scott.

Then, Claremont has Jean’s memory of Scott turn into an interaction with him in the present, as if she had been watching a play, and the actor abruptly broke the fourth wall and addressed her directly.  Claremont carefully keeps the explanation ambiguous:  is Jean imagining Scott talking to her, or is he somehow actually there, as a ghost, or perhaps even briefly resurrected by her powers?  Not only does Scott remain steadfast in his love for Jean, but Claremont has the insight to have Scott explicitly compare his uncontrollable eye beams to Jean’s Phoenix powers.  He tells her she has a “choice” and challenges her to control them.  (And though the novel does not mention this, readers may recall that Jean could indeed control Scott’s supposedly uncontrollable optic blasts.  So can she master her own powers?) 

What a great scene this could have been in the movie!  It would have illuminated the audience’s understanding of Jean’s psychological crisis, it would have dramatically set up her ultimate decision at the film’s climax, and it would have given the actors playing Scott and Jean bravura acting opportunities.  So why isn’t such a scene there? 

Warren Worthington, Jr., the Angel’s father, has established his labs to produce the “cure” in the old prison on Alcatraz Island off San Francisco.  Magneto employs his powers to wrench the Golden Gate Bridge out of position, so that his mutant army can march right off the bridge onto the island. 

Now there are certainly easier ways for Magneto to transport his troops.  He could have just had them get aboard the cars on the bridge, and levitated them over.   What we have here, though, is, intentionally or not, an allusion to the September 11, 2001 attacks:  Magneto is another terrorist leader attacking an iconic American structure. Claremont seems to get it:  he dubs the day of Magneto’s attack “M-day,” a nickname like “9/11,” and although he does not mention 9/11, he describes the effect of “M-day” on public consciousness in similar terms (see p. 256).

Now, keep in mind that whereas in the book Claremont has been letting us see into Jean’s mind, in the movie, she has just been standing around staring into space.  During Magneto’s assault on the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz, I wondered if he was getting fed up with her.  Why recruit her to the cause when she does nothing?  She could have moved the Bridge and taken over the island all by herself, but no. 

In the book Claremont states that Phoenix aided Magneto in moving the bridge, without even his awareness.  I know that the Magneto of the movies is in his senior years, but as the main villain, he should be allowed full credit for his most spectacular feat!

I also wish at this point the novel would allow Dark Phoenix to be Dark Phoenix.  The book has Phoenix watch a family of innocent bystanders escape:  “Only when she was positive they were safely on shore did she turn to follow Magneto” (p. 263). Okay, once again:  If Jean’s conscience is in good working order, why in the name of the Phoenix Force is she accompanying Magneto on his mission of murder?  By page 270, Jean “still wasn’t sure” if she was loyal to Magneto or the X-Men.  If she is still as rational as she was in Chapter Nine, if she is willing to let those bystanders get away, why is she so undecided? 

In the movie, matters are clearer: Phoenix seems to be evil, just rather lazy about it, passively allowing Magneto and his troops to do all the work while she practices her Uatu the Watcher impression.

I very much like actress Ellen Page’s perky portrayal of Kitty Pryde, though she gets little screen time.  The way that Kitty beats the Juggernaut, by having Leech neutralize his powers, is very clever, even though it depends on either (1) the movie Juggernaut being a mutant, or (2) the movie Leech being able to neutralize powers of any origin. 

Likewise, I was happy to see that Iceman finally gets to wear an ice sheath all over his body, though it wish he had looked more like the blockier ice covering in the comics:  perhaps it is too hard for CGI to make that look realistic.

At the showing of Last Stand I attended, the audience applauded when Magneto was injected with the “cure”:  they obviously appreciated the poetic justice that Magneto, who regards mutants as racially superior to humans, was thus “reduced” to being a human himself.  But in retrospect I wonder how appropriate that response was.  I thought of the fate of Shakespeare’s Shylock, who is forced to convert from Judaism to Christianity, allegedly for his own good, a judgment that modern audiences correctly find disturbing.  I wonder if McKellen thought of the same analogy.

Now, finally, Dark Phoenix goes into action.  In the book, the “cured” Magneto induces her to combat by appealing to her logically:  “Look at me.  Look into their hearts.  This is what they want. For all of us” (p. 311).  Well, then, why should she lash out at the X-Men, who don’t feel that way?  In the movie, if I recall it correctly, Dark Phoenix lashes out when the soldiers defending Alcatraz start firing at her. That makes more sense to me:  that upon being attacked, Jean, without thinking, reacts in anger, thereby going into full Dark Phoenix mode. 

And now, at last, we have special effects that convincingly depict the overwhelming chaos Phoenix can unleash (but, alas, still no fiery bird effect).

Stunned by the spectacle, Magneto plaintively asks, “What have I done?”, reminding me of Mastermind in the comics’ “Dark Phoenix Saga,” who also unleashed forces far beyond his control or comprehension. 

The novel raises the stakes higher than the movie.  Magneto asserts that Dark Phoenix is “Discorporating the planet” (p. 314), thus apparently attempting to do to Earth what she did to Xavier.  But since the novel has shown us Jean willing even to let those bystanders escape, it is hard to understand why she would be suddenly willing to destroy the Earth. 

Keep in mind that in the comics’ “Dark Phoenix Saga,” even when she was at the height of insanity, Dark Phoenix did not intentionally destroy that inhabited planet:  replenishing her powers by triggering a supernova, she was oblivious to its destruction of the D’Bari’s world.

Claremont has skillfully probed the mind of the rational Jean in the novel.  what’s missing is a look at how she thinks when her insanity swallows up her conscious mind.  Perhaps then we could understand why she would kill Xavier or try to destroy the Earth. 

Fans have wondered why the X-Men didn’t try to stop Jean by using the “cure,” or by having Leech neutralize her powers.  Well, since she’s a telepath, she would know those attacks were coming, and defend herself against them.  It might have been a neat bit of business to use the “cure” or Leech on Jean, and then show that Dark Phoenix is so powerful they have no effect on her.

It would have been even better if Scott were still around, so there could be a dramatic confrontation in which he reminded her of their love for each other and tried to talk her into calming down.  But, no.

In any case, the traditional climax of tragedy is the protagonist’s death.

So, instead, Jean’s true personality breaks through her insanity long enough to beg Wolverine to kill her, and he impales her with his claws. And yet again the movie Jean takes a more passive role than her comics counterpart.

The movie’s divergences cast the brilliance of Claremont and Byrne’s original comics “Dark Phoenix Saga” into sharp relief.  In their version, Xavier manages to exorcise Dark Phoenix from Jean, with her help, in Uncanny X-Men #136.  Hence, for most of the finale of the Saga, in Uncanny X-Men #137, Jean is her normal self.  The readers could reacquaint themselves with her, and empathize with this good woman as doom closed in upon her.   In the final pages, at the height of the battle between the X-Men and the alien Shi’ar to decide her fate, Jean abruptly reverts to Dark Phoenix.  Jean’s normal personality struggles back to the fore, long enough for her to bid farewell to her beloved Scott, and to activate an ancient alien weapon:  she commits suicide rather than revert permanently to the monster that is Dark Phoenix.

In the comics Jean does not ask someone else to kill her:  she kills herself.  The movie Jean is a pathetic victim, not strong enough to put an end to her own rampage.  The comics Jean is a self-sacrificing heroine.

Notice that in the book, Claremont confronts Jean with the necessity of making a choice.  But it is in the comics that she more actively, heroically made that choice.

Following Phoenix’s demise, both the movie and the book come to their conclusion.  But the movie is less successful in wrapping up the “cure” storyline than the book is.  Was the “cure” a good or bad thing?  Claremont’s novel states that Warren Worthington, Jr. shut down the clinics:  that would seem to indicate that Worthington and Claremont agree that the “cure” was bad.

But what about Rogue?  My impression (and those of others I’ve read) is that in the movie Rogue undergoes the “cure”:  it’s “my choice,” she tells her boyfriend Iceman, as if discussing the abortion issue.  This provides a happy ending for Rogue, since she can now touch Iceman without activating her mutant power to absorb his memories and abilities.  If Rogue’s mutation is regarded as a handicap, this is a good thing.  But if Rogue’s mutation is regarded as her racial identity, matters become more ambiguous.  If a black person wanted to become white (or vice versa), and could do so, should we approve?

The novelization’s denouement for Rogue seems to me more ambiguous.   Rogue again tells iceman she made her “choice,” but Claremont specifies that while Rogue has bared her arms, she keeps her gloves on, and she takes iceman’s hand in hers.  My reading of this is that Rogue did not undergo the “cure” after all.

In the movie the Beast becomes the United States Ambassador to the United Nations.  This is an admirable concept:  the United States makes a mutant its representative and spokesman to the world.  Similarly, in real life, the appointment of African-Americans such as Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell to major Cabinet positions has been the United States’ declaration to the world of its commitment to being a multiracial society.

In the novel, however, the Beast becomes a teacher at Xavier’s school, and this suits his personality and interests better.  Indeed, he should be headmaster, not Storm!  Still, there’s no reason why the beast couldn’t be U. N. ambassador and teach part-time.

In the novel Claremont details how Magneto has gotten himself a job working aboard a ship captained by one of his characters from the comics, Aleytis Forrester.  But I prefer the pathos of Magneto’s final scene in the film, which suggests that, without his mutant powers, the elderly Magneto has become a sad, lonely old man playing chess by himself in the park.  (I wonder if Magneto’s fate in the movie explains why Marvel de-powered him at the end of the recent House of M comics storyline.)   Watching the movie, I thought that perhaps Magneto imagined Xavier to be his opponent in the chess game, so I was pleased to see that Claremont came to the same conclusion in the novel.

Just before the credits begin, we see one of Magneto’s metal chess pieces wobble as he reaches for it.  So, despite Marvel’s claims, this is a clear set-up for a possible fourth movie.  It also suggests that, if Rogue was “cured,” that cure won’t last.

Now, I usually stay through a movie’s closing credits.  (In the case of a Marvel movie, I’m searching for a Kirby credit, for one thing.)   Roughly ninety-five percent of the audience at the showing I attended left during the credits, and the cleaning personnel were already hard at work. But my patience was rewarded when the credits were abruptly followed by a final, unexpected scene.  This scene was apparently so secret that it didn’t even make it into the novelization.

Dr. Moira MacTaggart is tending to a patient who was born without higher brain functions.  She hears a familiar voice speak to her: “Moira.”  And she says, in surprise, “Charles?”

Now some people, including movie critic James Berardinelli, were disappointed by Xavier’s resurrection:  he charged that “It doesn’t play fair with the audience, and cheapens one of the film’s most poignant elements,” and warned that “I think most who miss it will have a better overall opinion of the film than those who stick it out.”

First, I didn’t find Xavier’s earlier demise “poignant” but thought it was a cheap shock effect, so I felt better about the movie once I saw this scene.

Second, I admired the cleverness with which the movie had set up the possibility of a telepath taking over that patient’s mind in one of its early scenes, right under our noses, and still surprised me.  That is indeed playing fair with the audience.

In another interview, former Marvel movie mogul Avi Arad said, “I tell you what really pisses me off about this stuff -  is the ignorance to the comics, because. . . Xavier died in the comic. One of the most famous panels in the comic was his funeral.”  Actually, it’s hardly famous, but Xavier did seemingly die (in X-Men #42 in 1968) and come back (in issue 65 in 1970).  “They all die and come back.”

So Xavier could come back in a fourth X-Men movie, and since he has a new body, he would presumably be played by a different (and presumably less expensive) actor than Patrick Stewart.

Of course, anyone who knows comic books, or soap operas, for that matter, knows that unless you see the body (and sometimes not even if you do), the character isn’t really dead.  Despite the novel’s assertions that Cyclops is dead, we never see him die in the movie.  So he could come back, possibly in a new body, in a fourth film, as well.

And as for Phoenix, her very name makes clear that she may not stay dead, any more than she has in the comics.

So I have hope:  if there are more X-Men movies, maybe future directors and screenwriters will have the chance to do Scott and Jean right,

ADVERTISEMENTS FOR MYSELF

My suspicions about the alleged boom in academic interest in the comics medium continue unabated:  only one person signed up for my course, “The Graphic Novel as Literature,” at New York University this summer, so it was canceled – yet again.

However, my monthly lecture course, “1986: The Year That Changed Comics,” continues at Manhattan’s Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (www.moccany.org).  At 6:30 PM on Monday, June 26, I will be lecturing on Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli’s Daredevil: Born Again.  (It’s a follow-up to my June 6 talk about Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, which went quite well.)  And it’s free!  Feel free to come!

This Sunday, July 2, Newsweek‘s radio show will have a segment about superhero movies, including an interview with me.  Consider it a preview of my forthcoming review of Superman Returns for this column.  
 
Copyright 2006 Peter Sanderson