A Comic Book Fan’s Reward

I spent a lot of time in comic book stores growing up.

My favorite book was The Uncanny X-Men (and this was back in the day when there was only one X-title), and I didn’t get those people who were into the Avengers or Superman (and I didn’t know anyone who read the Fantastic Four). I would strike up conversations with the staff at these stores, looking for cheap back issues with good stories. One day, a clerk at the Jim Hanley’s Universe in the Staten Island Mall suggested I read a trade paperback reprinting what he called “the best storyline ever,” Days of Future Past.

I didn’t follow his advice immediately- the book was a bit more expensive than my usual purchases and the cover, featuring Wolverine (who I did not appreciate at the time) didn’t make me want to buy the book. It took a few months, but one day I purchased it. I started reading it on the car ride home on a hot summer day. My father stopped at the grocery store to pick something up and I was so entranced by the book that I asked to stay in the car so I can finish it.

It was a short, two-issue story that blew my mind. It was my first real experience reading about time travel (I read this before I understood Back to the Future, and the original story was published before the release of any of the Terminator movies) and alternate futures. And since then, I’ve become a fan of things like BTTF, Lost and Doctor Who, all of which feature time travel.

All these years later, I still consider myself an X-Men fan. I don’t read the books on as frequent a basis as I used to. And I think that the movie series is the best film franchise based on a comic book (even including the lackluster X3) (a bit of a side note: part of me does wish that comic books were this popular when I was growing up, although, I feel like a hipster saying I was into them back before everyone else was), so naturally when I heard the next X-Men movie would be based on Days of Future Past, I was elated. And I was right to be happy about it- the movie was a great blending of the two timestreams. It adapted the source material well (even if it had to make some changes for practicality sake) and the surprises at the end were very rewarding.

I do have two minor complaints about the movie and they both involve the same character, Colossus, who was my favorite X-Man growing up:

  • When in armored form, Colossus’ hair is supposed to be black (and it was in the other movies), but it was silver in DOFP.
  • In the movie, Colossus dies twice. The first one hurt enough. The second time was just rubbing it in.

Despite those quibbles, if I were able to project my consciousness in the past, the me of 20 years ago would be very happy with these movies. Even if I would have been surprised that good comic book movies existed.

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