In 1995 director Lars Von Trier, tired of the special effects and genre tropes he felt were ruining cinema, created a list of rules for filmmakers to follow in order to make superior, modern artistic worth. This new style for film-making was called “Dogma 95.”
Rules like “Filming must be done on location,” “No overdubbed background music,” and “All films must feature at least one bear-mauling” make perfect sense when you think about them.
Why do I mention this? Well, I’ve just read Avengers X-Sanction #1. It is, don’t get me wrong, a beautiful book. I’ve liked the team of Loeb and McGuiness since Batman/Superman and I loved them on The Hulk (by the way, trades of these great runs are available here at the Planet!). Loeb keeps his stories simple, fluid, and action packed. McGuiness is the inheritor of Arthur Adams.
BUT. The plot of X-Santion is…iffy. Cable, the time hopping mutant son of Cyclops and Jean Grey’s clone, is going to capture/kill all of the Avengers because somehow they will kill Hope, his time-traveling mutant adopted daughter who is probably a clone of Jean Grey.
And WHY does he think this? I’m sure it will be clarified in future issues, but if we only read this first issue (and again, it is the only one out yet) it is because A) he wakes up in the future after being dead with no explanation of how he got there, B) THIS future (and this is a character that has experienced many) is desolate and destroyed, and C) a time traveling friend of his named Blaquesmith told him that the future was destroyed because “Hope is dead and it’s the Avengers fault.”
GETTING BACK
So about the Dogma Film movement and the new rules for making superior art? I have a rule for comics: NO MORE messed up time travel stories!
Especially in this instance! Blaquesmith could have been speaking metaphorically. “Whoa!” He could say, later on. “You tied Captain America to a chair and shot him in the head because I said Hope was dead? I meant, like, HOPE, ya know? The desire to aspire towards loftier goals and ambitions? You thought I meant your adopted daughter? Way to fly off the handle there, Cable.”
Besides, these future moments take place in “The Far Future.” I should hope that Hope is dead in “The Far Future,” because otherwise she’d be, like, 500-50 thousand years old. As premises go this is like going back in time to kill Mickey Mantle because he didn’t play in the 2011 World Series.
NOT ONLY THAT but Hope is only alive at all because Cable recently fought against a time traveling Bishop who went back to the past to kill her because a potential future he envisioned was destroyed because of her.
THERE ARE MANY potential futures! We can’t just go around killing everybody in the past to try and make things better tomorrow! Geez Cable. Grow up.
NEW AND GOOD!
This week: Dark Horse Presents #7 has a NEW Mike Mignola Hellboy…drawn and written baby! Uncanny X-Force #19 introduces a new team of Mutie-bad-asses! Avengers #20 has Hydra Hulks! Justice League #4 has…ah who cares what it has?! It’s Justice League #4!
NEXT WEEK: The top ten greatest comic book Mummies!
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More musings from Unkiedev, Earth’s own sidekick, can be read at unkiedev.blogspot.com
