New Mutants – help is hard

New Mutants is quickly becoming my second favorite X-title, right behind X-Factor. It started a few issues back when Cyclops decided that the team should be used to tie up loose ends. Not only does this put the younger X team in a position for interesting stories that confront plot holes, but it also marked a stylistic shift toward more concise writing. You can’t have a book devoted to tightening things up that simultaneously makes such errors itself. I think the writing team knew that.

Issue 28 struck exactly the right chord with me. I’ve always wondered what a (somewhat) realistic therapist would make of characters in comics. In walks Gus Grim, a horribly named therapist described by Emma Frost as both a “cowboy and an Indian.” The narrative tone of the issue with definitely humorous, but that was stricken with some poignancy. Grim appears to use a variant form of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy.I always thought the most concise summation of the practice was, “Get over yourself.” Grim would agree.

X-Men: First Class – racial tensions

Only white people need apply. Or blue if you're white underneath or spend most of your time looking white.

My displeasure with the rest of the X-Men film franchise almost led me to not seeing X-Men: First Class, despite the early good reviews. Social stimulation brought me out to see it, and I was pleasantly surprised. Unfortunately, it did not make up for the Wolverine-centered focus in the first three films, the utter banality of X-Men, the almost good film ruined by a completely ridiculously stupid ending that was X-2 (seriously, the X-Men are trained to be a team, so it doesn’t make sense that Jean Gray would fight a tidal wave by herself when Storm can send a strong wind against it, Iceman can freeze water, and Cyclops’ blasts are actually a physical force…), the complete miss that was X-Men 3, or the existence of X-Men Origins: Wolverine. But it was a clever movie in that it was a period piece and mixed a tiny bit of the spy genre into the plot. It almost made the film seem classy.

Almost.