Friday, July 2, 2010

The X-Men and Me


Its no secret that I'm a fan of comic books, my dream is to one day be a freelance artist for a major company where I can do some stuff here and there, preferably for one of the two major groups. For those outside the comic loop the two big companies are Marvel and DC. Marvel is the home of Spider-Man, X-Men, The Avengers, Captain America and The Hulk to name a few. The DC 'universe' as its called is the home to Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash and Green Lantern, as well as a whole slew of others.

Each universe is different, Marvel is more based in reality, with real cities and their heroes being more human with more real human concerns, and DC is more fantasy with sprinkles of reality here and there.

My favorite within Marvel, and the comic I probably have more of than any is the X-Men.
Most people only know X-Men from the movies, which is sad, its a little bit more than that, there's such a giant history behind this book, I read an article where the current writer for X-Men compared it to dealing with the Tolkien universe, with such rich characters and history that come with each one of them.

Throughout the run of X-Men we have joked that some of the characters have gone threw a lot of the same things in life that I or those around me have gone threw. While I've yet to be hunted by Sentinels, I have been shunned and hated for being who I am, ha! The real reason I've grown to like X-Men even more as I've gotten older is because I see the book for what it is, its not a team book, its a family book.

The Avengers all came together because they work together, they all fill a need, they were a government project, they're a team. The X-Men came together because of a need to help one another, they're a family, a blended family mixed with people who are related by blood and some whom are not, they are best of friends, they get along, they fight or argue, but in the end they are the team that "always takes care of their own."

I can relate to this, this is my family a tight knit group of people, family and friends who would do anything for one another. Who tackle difficult tasks together but also make time to hang out, have fun and cut loose. I sat last night with two members of my 'team' and watched The Crazies, we made jokes, comments, pointed out bad decisions and how we would have done things better.
'Cannonball' said: This is exactly why we would not survive in some massive zombie crazy apocalypse, because of our comments like this.
'Iceman' said I disagree, this is EXACTLY why we would survive the zombie apocalypse, keeping our heads, making jokes and knowing just what to do.
They both looked at me, I smiled and agreed with both of them just loving the fact that the two of them were actually planning on how we would handle the world invasion.

Current Roster:
A-Team: Cyclops, Wolverine, Cannonball, Havok, Colosus, Bishop
B-Team Emma Frost, Iceman, X-23, Beast, Nightcrawler and Dazzler
Base team: Rogue, Polaris, Spider-Man and Jubilee