Today's Double News: Days of Future Past fully covered

As always I prove to be particularly drawn to posting superhero news on MS, and consequently reposting it here:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/153410/marvel_wil_russos_terug_voor_captain_america_3

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/153359/empire_onthult_25_covers_x-men_days_of_future_past

25 different magazine covers?! Am I glad I'm not a collector of anything X-Men, saves me a lot of money in this case. I doubt there would be many people - though I know there will definitely be some - crazy enough to collect them all if they can just behold them in Hi-Def glory online. And they certainly are glorious, me thinks. (Be sure to check them out right here to form your own opinion on the subject.) Though there's the usual Photoshop editing to post the various characters overly smoothly in the shot, you can't deny the full panoramic view of all 25 covers in the right order, moving from the Sixties to the (not too distant?) future, is quite an ingenious piece of work. I must admit I didn't even notice the big picture (literally) at first when I only saw the first six covers made available. However, it's the characters, new an old, that take centerstage on both the covers and in fan interest, including my own. We finally get to see decent shots of the much anticipated new characters, as well as the grim future appearances of beloved familiar ones from Singer's own first pair of X-movies. I'm first and foremost glad and thankful virtually all of both time frame's major players have returned, including personal favorites like Sir Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence and Ellen Page. Say what you will about the rather pretentious and arrogant cover text 'the biggest ever superhero movie', this film certainly has the most impressive cast to date of all Marvel flicks. The greatest fear in this regard is that with so many characters, few of them get a true chance to shine and many will be relegated to minor tidbits of interaction: a feeling not unwarranted since overcrowdedness has already cost Anna Paquin's Rogue her limited screen time, though oddly enough she's still present on these covers regardless. That said, if Singer proved one thing with X-Men and X2, it's that he knows how to handle star studded ensemble pieces, giving each character his or her due. I have faith he hasn't forgotten how to keep large casts worth our while on screen.

The most notable thing about these covers is the excellent new shots they provide of hot new mutant characters, namely Quicksilver (the first, as another will appear next year in the second Avengers film), Warpath, Sunspot, Blink and Bishop. A diverse bunch appropriated from the whole spectrum of the X-universe throughout its long history and hopefully not randomly thrown in the mix. Though Warpath, Blink and Bishop look a lot like their comic book counterparts (except with blacker costumes, to establish a sense of coherency in the bleak future X-look), Sunspot and particularly Quickie have underwent a few stylistic changes, in the latter's case no doubt to make him distinct from the other Quicksilver, which might follow the character's historically drawn dresscode more closely. As for Sunspot, maybe I'm just used to seeing him in full 'spot mode' too much to remember his actual physical regular appearance. What's more surprising than the addition of novel characters is the unexpected return of old ones, i.e. Colonel Stryker (who looks quite different from his counterpart in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, pushing that movie out of the cinematic continuity even further) and Toad (who also bears little similarity to the original as played by Ray Park). I'm guessing Toad will stay limited to playing the henchman as before, but Stryker clearly will have a bigger part to play as the film's secondary human antagonist (next to Peter Dinklage's Bolivar Trask), likely forming a liaison between the American military and Trask Industries as the pair of them engage in constructing mutant hunting Sentinels. As for those, they look spectacular. The past version looks retro and similar enough to the comic book robots to keep the fans satisfied (or me, at least), while the future Sentinel is a whole different beast altogether, which definitely allowed the design team to go all-out. As for the character design, I'm sure there will be ample whining about the black Batmanesque X-costumes, but I have little against them except they make for too uniform a look as opposed to the wildly divergent styles of costumes from the comics. Some characters make it work, like Colossus and Storm who look badass, while on others (Xavier, Shadowcat (here simply referred to by her real name Kitty Pryde)) the choice is less appealing. However, I'm all for substance over style, and as long as these are compelling characters played convincingly by capable actors, I have no qualms about their outfits. Not everyone can look like Mystique, who has found a perfect balance in that respect.

Aside from the background panorama, there's a few other little details to enjoy. I love Blink's teleporting window, revealing Warpath's back, and vice versa. Maybe the covers hint at a romantic relationship or some other personal connection between these newbie characters? Also of note is the difference between Wolverine's claws in both eras, the past showing the bone claws he originally was born with as illustrated in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (welcome back to the continuity!), the future witnessing him equipped with his well known adamantium claws instead. Since it was established Logan got the rare metal grafted onto his skeleton somewhere in the early Seventies, and the past section of X-Men: Days of Future Past as I understood it takes place in 1963 around the time of JFK's assassination, this fits the timeline neatly. And what's with the military look to Havok and Toad? They undercover or som'thin'? What's up with Quicksilver's utility belt? Why is Rogue all in white unlike the rest of her team members, and what's that spaceship looking thingy above here? These covers provide both answers and new questions, and prove more effective in terms of spawning speculation than the somewhat disappointing first trailer did.

In other news, Marvel is doing with the Russo Brothers what Fox recently did with Matt Reeves on Planet of the Apes, seemingly already hiring them on the basis of great expectations over concrete results for another sequel. I still say this is not the smartest move, but at least in the case of Marvel Studios advance planning of future projects has been shown to be taken much more seriously than is usual. And so far I have no reason to doubt the qualities of the Russos, as I very much liked what I saw of Captain America: The Winter Soldier so far. But who cares about a project at least three or four years in the future when you can drool over them X-covers some more? X-Men: Days of Future Past is only a few months away but thanks to promotional strategies like these the suspense is killing me. Considering the status of the original story line as one of the greatest X-Men classics and the presence of a humongous cast of talented actors, as well as this film's need to also serve as a decent set-up for the sequel X-Men: Apocalypse, the movie certainly has a lot to live up to. I trust Singer realized all of this well in advance. Considering his success on the first X-films, I'm willing to cut him some slack. X-celsior, Bryan!