Astonishing X-Men #14, Alias fanfic and Life on Mars vid

[selenak]

RL-wise, I had an annoying day, but thankfully, fandom waited with goodness. kangeiko wrote a great (which means disturbing, hot and messed-up) Jack/Nadia ficlet. With a killer punchline. Having just rewatched The Box because a) I have a Sloane character post to write and b) I still feel guilty for forgetting to nominate it for best hostage episode in the poll a while ago, I promptly started to wonder again about just how Jack thinks Sloane feels about Sydney. Ah, well. That's something for another post.

Back to fannish goodness: Luminosity (aka The Best Vidder Ever) made a Life on Mars vid: Timebomb. I am a very happy barely weeks old fan indeed. If you haven't watched the show, download the vid and get a taste of why you should.

And my local comicstore handed over a couple of imports, including Astonishing X-Men #14. See, that's why they hired Joss, aside from hiring him for the dialogue. For the BadWrong. So, in X2, that scene where Mystique keeps switching into all the X-Girls to mess with Logan's mind? That's tame. Despite Joss' movieverse issues, I can just see him watching that, thinking of what his faithful minion DeKnight, bless him, did with Wes 'n Lilah in Apocalypse, Nowish, and decide to mix, stir, compete and do better than both.



So we get Emma/Jean/Scott/Logan, and generally an issue which is one long mindfuck. Mr. Whedon, I'm awed. Also hurting for Scott (whereas in the Wes/Lilah case, my sympathies were firmly with Lilah). But awed. And very pleased I got my wish about more Scott and more Emma. Mind you, I expect that next we'll get lots and lots of Kitty again, but hey, I can deal. I have nothing against Kitty as long as I still get my Scott/Emma/Hank. (That's not a suggestion for a follow-up, Mr. Whedon, Sir.) (Although, if you can't help yourself...) Also, I continue to find Agent Brand a good villain and now imagine her played by Amy Acker because Amy currently impresses me as Kelley Peyton on Alias. Plus Brand has green hair.

My guess for the Breakworld destroying mutant? Not Emma, because that would be too easy. Either Kitty or Scott, for the angst factor.

Comments

[artaxastra.livejournal.com]

Poor Scott. He's so much fun to kick around.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

He suffers beautifully.

[vaznetti]

I got caught up to #12 of Astonishing X-Men, and now must hunt down noew issues. I can't help feeling that dating Scott has just got to be more trouble than it's worth, on general principles, even if you aren't planning some kind of big betrayal-related breakup.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Mmm, I don't know. A while ago kangeiko issued this challenge about secondary loves in fandom - i.e. not your favourite character, the one you love second best. With X-Men (both movieverse and comicverse), that's Scott Summers. (Probably precisely because he isn't the "poster child of mutant cool" as Emma describes Wolverine, isn't the one who can walk away from responsibility, and is the one who has to stick the awful situations out.)

[vaznetti]

I was being a little flippant; I am quite fond of Scott, for precisely the reasons you mention here. He's very much a real person as well, if that makes any sense. But I sometimes feel that some people may just not be emotionally suited to moving on from their temporarily dead girlfriends/wives/whatevers, and should probably devote that down-time honing their brooding technique. But I probably shouldn't say anything else, because I still don't know what happens after #12 and I will just discover that I've been very, very wrong.

Heh.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

Wheeee! Lum's vidding LoM!

Damn. Lum's vidding LoM.

Now I feel all, hm, un-entitled to dare to make my Incompetent First Vid in LoM fandom. I mean, LoM has Luminosity now... why would they need *my* silly little vid?! (Until today I felt sort of safe using LoM for my first experiment in vidding, mainly because it's an infant of a fandom, with very few people yet, and even fewer vids.)

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*grabs odd inferiority complex by the throat, takes it out back, and shoves it into a wall, Gene Hunt style*

(I got good feedback from chasa, for god's sake! And chasa's a contestant for the 'best vidder ever' title, so feedback from chasa = whoa. Bliss.)

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Well... actually, now I feel like I should invest even *more* time in vidding. Eeeeeek.

(University? What is this thing you call 'university'? *g*)

*goes off to wrangle Adobe Premiere Pro some more*

The force will be with you, always.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Aw, come on and listen to your inner Gene!
Or else I threaten you with my standard reply to the "but don't you feel intimidated by that fact X also wrote..." question.*g*

[buffyannotater.livejournal.com]

Thanks to your LoM rec, I downloaded the eps last week and watched the first one last night. I'm very intrigued! Looking forward to watching the rest.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

*dances the dance of successful pimping*

[buffyannotater.livejournal.com]

Ok, it only took one more episode, and now I'm completely in love. :-)

It started the scene where the policewoman (I forget her name) was critically wounded, and Hunt blames Sam for having let the criminal go earlier in the episode, due to lack of evidence. Not only was the acting amazing, particularly when Sam cleans the blood off the ground with his coat, but seeing their two different zeitgeists clash is fascinating, because although we like to think of our time as "more enlightened" than the 70s, Hunt does have a point, too, about the problems with needing to wait for evidence for a clearly guilty, dangerous suspect. And then their fight in the hospital room! It's such a great blend of comedy, drama, and sci-fi(?). I love it!

And that "dream" where the girl from the TV taunts Sam, and the moment where the power started shutting down in the hospital? Wicked cool. :-)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

and Hunt blames Sam for having let the criminal go earlier in the episode, due to lack of evidence. Not only was the acting amazing, particularly when Sam cleans the blood off the ground with his coat

Oh yes. Great, intense scene. *fangirls writers and actors*

And then their fight in the hospital room! It's such a great blend of comedy, drama, and sci-fi(?). I love it!

Me too, and I thought it was a great way of handling an obvious cliché of the genre (the genre in this case being the cop buddy movie/ tv show, wherein two diametrically opposed characters have to physically fight and then they've bonded *g*). By not showing the actual fight because they kept diving out of camera frame, the show acknowledged that the audience is aware this is a cliché, with a wink, but at the same time the aftermath, when we saw them again, was emotionally real.

Also? This is such a "test your knowledge of 70s tunes" series. *g*

[buffyannotater.livejournal.com]

Also? This is such a "test your knowledge of 70s tunes" series. *g*

Hee, I've passed the test so far, even though I was born in '81. ;-)

[kangeiko]

Ah, you are so sweet! Thanks for the rec honey. :)

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

Read the issue. . .poor Scott!

And yay for Amy as Brand.

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

Thinking more on Scott/Emma vs. Wes/Lilah in a comparable scenario -- it seems like the fundamental difference is that Emma seems to be (based only on reading the Astonishing series and extrapolating what their past has been) in the position of superior power in the relationship. When it comes to mind games, Scott's more of her plaything than her playmate. That's not to say Scott has no power -- witness Emma's grumble about taking second place to a corpse. But essentially, she's using the disguise here in an attempt to strengthen a hold she already has on him.

On the other hand, Wesley/Lilah is more of a give and take relationship from the outset; but by the time of her glasses-and-pigtails gambit, she's making a last-ditch move to keep her hold from slipping -- which makes her more sympathetic. On the other hand, I've never been able to get entirely on Lilah's side, because it seems like she gets the relationship (or whatever) that she bargains for. That scene works as a microcosm of the relationship -- she's making the first move and setting the tone; Wesley's reacting and raising the stakes, and on some level she hates it and one some level she loves it, but for whatever reason she keeps coming back and making the same mistake instead of a different choice. (Which are all things you could say about Wesley in other contexts, which is what makes them such a perfect[ly awful] match).

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Poor Scott indeed. (Though now the question is, will he indeed be able to use his powers sans control-by-glasses? The emotional devastation before, though...)

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

And if he does get to work without glasses, will that carry over to the movies, and will they have to replace James Marsden when everybody realizes his eyes are too close together? *g*

Another thing I liked about this issue was the sort of meta in Emma explaining that Scott got to be the leader because he didn't have anything else -- as that's the sort of thought process writers go through in sorting out characters. As such, it also hearkens back to the "Am I the muscle?" speech that Joss gave Gunn in 'spin the bottle'.

And I vote for Kitty as the world-destroying mutant.

[vaznetti]

I finally read the issue. I take all my flippant comments back, and will now be in the corner wibbling and saying "poor Scott!" and "Oh no!" repeatedly.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

*g* I know...