X-Men Review: Movie Adaptation Last update: 21st August 2000

This really is pathetic. When I opened the glossy cover and saw the artwork I thought "Hey, this looks pretty good!". I'd already decided to buy it before I'd even picked it up (it was the reason I'd gone into the shop in the first place - I'd seen it for sale before I saw the film and decided to wait until after I'd seen the film before deciding whether or not to buy it; I didn't want to spoil the film, after all) but I think the artwork would have made me buy it if I hadn't decided. It's got a scruffy quality to it which I like, although the lines that make up the characters are all clean and there's a lot of detail here. It's pretty good.

Unfortunately the script isn't anywhere near this quality. The first couple of frames are good but then we get right to what makes me dislike Marvel and favour DC - Marvel doesn't seem to have a writer that's capable of scripting properly. The characters say things that no real person would ever say. Okay, this doesn't happen a lot for the first few pages but with the introduction of the main characters as we see them for the majority of the comic (the first few pages deal with backstory and scene setting) the writer shows his true colours - he's got to be a children's comic writer; some of the stuff the characters say belongs in The Beano*. Take this for example. It's from the 3rd and 4th frames of page 9:

Storm: Cyclops, that trailer is on fire! I will pull the girl free!
Cyclops: And I'll get him [referring to Wolverine]. We've only got seconds before the flames hit the gas tank!

It's dialogue like that which really gets on my nerves. We don't need to know they've only got seconds - if done right the tension would have been there without having to resort of that line - especially when we can see from the artwork that everyone's out of the vehicle by then.

Add to this the fact that much of the plot of the film has been rewritten and you end up with something that's a pale imitation of a decent story. They should have stuck to the original script more. As it is, this is a great comic for its artwork but it's unreadable unless you go at it in 2-3 page chunks.