Don't get too X-cited...

So the reviews for X-Men: Dark Phoenix are coming in...and they are not good!

It looks like the X-Men universe, at least the Fox version of it, is going out with a whimper rather than a bang, as Dark Phoenix may not be the finale this franchise needed or deserved (that would be Logan, by the way).

I haven't seen it yet, but I still will, despite these stinky reviews (I've actually found that getting bad reviews for movies I'm going to see anyway can be a good thing, as I go in with super-low expectations and then just enjoy anything in them that's half-decent – that's how I had fun with Suicide Squad)!

A franchise will fall

But I was always going to watch this – before the MCU (the Marvel Cinematic Universe) took over the RAU (the Real Actual Universe), I actually loved the XMU (ummm...X-Men Universe...). I even didn't mind X-Men Origins: Wolverine and X-Men The Last Stand (and I'm fairly certain I had no (significant) brain injuries at the time). 
It probably helped that Hugh Jackman played such an excellent Wolverine, and Wolverine was my favourite comics character when "growing up" (along with the Punisher, Ghost Rider and Spider-man)**.  
Dark Phoenix opened today, but the main reason I'm not going to jump straight in and see it this weekend is that I now simply MUST watch, listen to, play and read stuff IN ORDER (e.g., refer to my #CountdownToAvengersEndgame that I just won't shut up about).  

I actually started watching them (etc...) in order*** after I bought the Logan blu-ray last year, but I got stymied when I couldn't load the X-Men game on to my very old PC.
I'm not sure if the above sentence will make any sense to anyone under the age of 30...

Anyhoo, I finally restarted watching them again last week, skipping X-Men: The Official Game and getting into the good old The Last Stand (which may turn out to be the better telling of the Dark Phoenix saga?!? WHAT'S HAPPENING?!?!?), and hope to finish next week.
If you also would like to get into the #CountdownToDarkPhoenix (that's definitely not a thing), just be aware that the timeline of the X-Men movies is CrAzY and CoNfuSiNg, sometimes intentionally but mostly unintentionally. That doesn't mean it's not worthwhile, just don't think about it too hard (the makers of the movies sure haven't...)
Anyhoo, here's my take on a viewing order, including the movies and various other things, ignore it as much as you like/can!:

X-MEN X-PLAINED
Note that in the below viewing order, the movies are in bold, everything else is in italics (e.g., comics and TV shows), the ones with an asterisk have basically been ‘erased’ as a result of the time travel in Days of Future Past (although similar events might have then happened again…), and most of the links are to Amazon/Amazon Prime. 

X-Men First Class – The High Hand (prequel digital comic)
X-Men: First Class (in the 60s) 
The Bent Bullet: JFK and the Mutant Conspiracy (a short video on Youtube, I think as part of the marketing for Days of Future Past (DoFP))
X-Men Origins: Wolverine* (in the 70s and 80s. Note – there's an accompanying game which is not exactly canon, but pretty fun...) 
X-Men Prequel: Magneto comic* 
X-Men Prequel: Rogue comic* 
X-Men Prequel: Wolverine comic* 
X-Men* (in the 2000s)
X-Men 2 Prequel: Wolverine comic* (incidentally, this confirms that the Sabretooth from the first X-Men movie is Victor Creed (who has also been experimented on by the Government and ALSO then got amnesia!)) 
X-Men 2 Prequel: Nightcrawler comic* (fantastic prequel comic (finally!) – leads directly into X2, and includes a wonderful story about Kurt and his circus, and also includes Stryker and Deathstrike). 
X2: X-Men United* 
X-Men: The Official Game* 
X-Men: The Last Stand* (this happens in 2006, according to http://www.25moments.com/ (see below))
The Wolverine* – I'll be watching the Unleashed Extended Edition.
The Gifted TV series* (I reckon this fits well in the 'old' timeline, especially since it includes a young Blink just developing her powers, who shows up in DoFP below, too…)
At this point, it's good to check out http://www.25moments.com/, which runs through 25 moments involving mutants in history from 1962 to 2018, including most of the above events, as well as some that are revealed in DoFP below...  
X-Men: Days of Future Past (starts in the future, then mostly in the 70s, but the end is back in the present time, having rebooted the franchise thanks to time travel) – I'll be watching the Rogue Cut...
X-Men: Apocalypse (in the 80s) 
X-Men: Dark Phoenix (in the 90s) 
Legion TV series (if it's going to go anywhere...)
Logan (set in the year 2029, possibly not in the same timeline but whatevs). I'm also tempted to watch Children of Men beforehand (it’s in the UK in the year 2027, and with very similar themes). I was initially going to watch this after Days of Future Past (after Wolverine wakes up back in the present time), but based on the reviews for Dark Phoenix, I think it might be best to save it for almost last...

Logan is hard yakka, so I think it's then good to get some FUN TIMES (although chronologically these probably technically go after Dark Phoenix)!: 

Deadpool 
Deadpool 2 (and/or Once Upon a Deadpool!) 

And that's that! Once you've watched them you can then free up space in your brain and just forget them all, as Disney is no doubt going to completely reboot them all when incorporating the X-Men into the MCU in a few years!

X-Celsior!


** Growing up is obviously relative. Incidentally, it was thanks to my love of Wolverine that I ended up collecting the 17,000 comics he appeared in every month in the early 90s, until I (and apparently many others) had to stop collecting completely when I couldn't afford the equivalent of the entire GDP of a small African nation to support my comics habit... 

*** I fully acknowledge that there's no such thing as a true chronological "order" to watch the X-Men movies in, just have fun with it!

My least popular blog post ever (probably)!

How good is putting stuff in order! It's, like, the best thing about the internet*! 

I recently put together the One True Viewing Order for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (the movies, at least), but I noticed a fair few people putting together lists of the movies from least to most favourite, such as good ol' friend of the Blog**, Scott Mendelson.

Now, Scott's list is wrong (as are all such lists that don't match mine exactly), but to be fair, this is a notoriously difficult process, mostly because they're all pretty good! I even like the ones that most people hate, like Thor: The Dark World and Iron Man 2: Electric Whippy-Loo. 
The way I've put the list together is to simply work out an order where I look at the movies on either side of an entry, and wonder, if I had to put a movie on, whether I would rather see the next one up the list than the one below it. 
It's that simple (and looking at my list, how "fun" a movie was really helped it move up the list (along with how much it linked in with the broader MCU)).  It's like a really nerdy "Would you rather..."

The controversial thing, and reasoning behind the title of this post, is that I'm not a huge fan of Black Panther (unlike, it seems, the rest of the world ... apart from this guy - “Get elected, mate. Then get back to me” - LOVE IT!). 
I feel like I need to justify this (with the obligatory "I'm not a racist, but..."), even though I shouldn't have to because it's a movie and it's fine and opinions on the internet and like, y'know, whatever.  
But here goes:
The thing I like least about Black Panther is ... Black Panther. Sorry, world (STOP JUDGING ME, YOU WORLD, YOU), but T'Challa is just not that interesting (or, more importantly, fun!). It's a weird movie because the three main antagonists - Killmonger, Ulysses Claue and M'Baku - are all WAY more interesting (not to mention fun, at least when looking at Claue and even M'Baku) than the hero. Shuri's great, too. But the real highlight is Michael B. Jordan's Killmonger. He has a fascinating character development and totally understandable motivations. He’s also (not to put too fine a point on it) a self-made man who wants to break open a super-selfish African nation that has hidden its amazing scientific (but really magic) abilities and literally allowed all of its neighbours to be colonised because otherwise…people would know things about people?
Ironically, the fact that he loses (and dies - spoiler alert!) could be part of the reason I don't really like revisiting this movie (I've seen it three times, I should mention). They shouldn't have killed him off, and he also shouldn't have killed Claue. But what do I know, I just (help, by contributing my hard-earned dollars by buying a few movie tickets and blu-rays to) make Billion Dollar Movies, yo.
I get that the movie is super-important for African-Americans, and Africans, generally (especially native Wakandans...), not to mention "the colonised" the world over. I think the American experience is very important to understanding this movie, and that's why it made so much money in the US … but I'm not American, nor should I be (though I am descended from a race of colonisers … and their convicts … in the Land Down Under).
It's just that when I consider my blu-ray collection, I would literally choose any of the other MCU movies before watching this. 
And this self-described (Australia’s own) coloured person has assured me that’s OK: https://www.cnet.com/news/black-panther-a-marvel-superhero-movie-you-dont-have-to-like/ (incidentally, Mr Van Boom has a BANGING last name). 
But … the movie’s still fine. IT’S THE FREAKING MCU BABY!!!! 

This is a movie and it's fine...

Also, less controversially, I still really like Guardians of the Galaxy but really don’t look forward to rewatching Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 ***. So take that, people who would get upset about that...
Anyhoo, here's my now-forever-tainted list, from Least Favourite to Most Favourite (i.e., from 'would least like to watch right now' to ‘would most like to watch right now’, based on my very recent #CountdownToAvengersEndgame watching experience):

22. Black Panther 
21. The Incredible Hulk 
20. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 
19. Thor: The Dark World 
18. Thor 
17. Iron Man 2 
16. Iron Man 
15. Doctor Strange 
14. Captain America: The First Avenger 
13. Iron Man 3 
12. Captain Marvel 
11. Avengers: Age of Ultron 
10. Ant-Man and the Wasp 
9. The Avengers 
8. Guardians of the Galaxy 
7. Spider-man: Homecoming 
6. Ant-man 
5. Captain America: Civil War 
4. Avengers: Endgame 
3. Thor: Ragnarok 
2. Avengers: Infinity War 
1. Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Important Disclaimer: I should mention that this list is liable to change from day to day and moment to moment (for example, I finally saw Endgame again last weekend, and I loved it a lot more the second time and consequently moved it further up the list – it's a truly great finale – come back to me once I’ve seen Far From Home!)

* Or one of the best things. Maybe I should make a list... 
** Does not know blog exists… 
*** Pretty sure that’s racist, though…

We're in the Endgame, now!

I'm not sure if you've heard, but there's a little movie coming out in a couple of weeks that should be pretty fun. 
It's called Avengers: Endgame. 
I've been doing a #CountdownToAvengersEndgame, watching all the MCU movies in chronological order, along with a few other bits and pieces (the One Shots, the Prelude comics, and even a few episodes of the TV shows, including finally finishing Agent Carter).
Well, it turns out that the Russo Brothers HAVE COPIED MY IDEA!! That's right, the directors of some of my favourite MCU movies have obviously been reading my Twitter feed, and blatantly ripped me off! 
Well, almost blatantly. They've been using the hashtag #ENDGAMECOUNTDOWN instead (nice try, Russo Brothers!) and also using the "T-minus" countdown method (actually, that's pretty good...)
As I write this, they're up to Thor: The Dark World. So it's actually time for us to put aside our differences, as I need to help them out. They are dangerously close to making a terrible decision here, and recommending (their own great movie) Captain America: The Winter Soldier as the next film to watch. Which it clearly is not, as this clever guy explains:

So whether you watch the #MCU movies in release or chronological order, you must know: The Dark World leads directly into Guardians of the Galaxy and The Winter Soldier leads directly into Age of Ultron. It’s just science! #CountdownToAvengersEndgame So this image is a bit wrong: pic.twitter.com/VJzNEG82ZC

— Riley J (@rilestar) April 6, 2019

And to help the REST of you out, and because everyone loves it when I put things in order, I present below the ONE TRUE VIEWING ORDER for the MCU movies.
Note: I haven't included the comics and TV shows (yet...), but I have included the One-Shots, 'coz they're cool.  The links are to American Amazon, but at this late stage, you might want to try a streaming option - Amazon can help you there, obviously, but in Australia, I think Stan (the streaming service, not the Lee) currently has ALL of the MCU movies (but not sure about the One-Shots and other bits and pieces)). 

THE ONE TRUE VIEWING ORDER
Captain America: The First Avenger – I know that the start and ending are in the modern day, but it works best here, as The First Avenger Movie*! 
Agent Carter (One Shot, on Iron Man 3 blu-ray) 
Captain Marvel – Great introduction to Nick Fury and Phil Coulson (also brings back the Tesseract post-Captain America). 
Hulk – Yep, the Ang Lee one - fight me! (Interestingly, the Executive Producers include Stan Lee and Kevin Feige)! 
Iron Man – The MCU proper begins! 
The Incredible Hulk 
The Consultant (One Shot, on Thor blu-ray) 
Iron Man 2 (ends with Coulson finding Thor’s hammer) 
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor's Hammer (One Shot, on Captain America: The First Avenger blu-ray) 
Thor – ending leads directly into the beginning of The Avengers. 
The Avengers 
Item 47 (One Shot, on The Avengers blu-ray). 
Iron Man 3 
All Hail the King (One Shot, on Thor: The Dark World blu-ray) 
Thor: The Dark World – post-credit scene with the Collector and Asgardians leads directly to Guardians, even though Winter Soldier was released next. 
Guardians of the Galaxy 
Captain America: The Winter Soldier – post-credit scene leads straight into Avengers: Age of Ultron 
Avengers: Age of Ultron – post-credit scene shows Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet... 
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 – Apparently this takes place only a few months after the first Guardians (so some people put it straight after), but I think it’s good to break up the two movies, and this is as good a place as any to put it, especially with the Thanos hint at the end of Ultron (and despite Stan Lee's post-Civil War comment to the Watchers...)
Ant-man (I also watch the WHIH Newsfront specials beforehand, on the blu-ray but also can be found online...)
Captain America: Civil War 
Spider-man: Homecoming – I know that the main events are a few months after Civil War, but since it begins with a recap of Civil War from Spidey’s perspective (plus it flashes back to immediately after Avengers, four years beforehand), I reckon it’s best here. You should, too!
Black Panther 
Ant-Man and the Wasp – Main story is 2 years after Civil War. Note: Ignore both post-credit sequences for now! 
Doctor Strange – Takes place over quite a while (a few years?), and the Avengers building can be seen in the New York skyline, but leads directly into Thor: Ragnarok. 
Thor: Ragnarok – ending leads directly into Infinity War. 
Avengers: Infinity War 
Ant-Man and the Wasp – Watch both post-credit scenes here! 
Aaaand then finally...Avengers: Endgame!

Happy viewing, y'all! 
See you in a couple of weeks!

* If you want to watch some movies before Captain America – how about the first three Indiana Jones movies? Hear me out!! In Captain America, Schmidt makes a snide remark about Hitler digging for relics in the desert … a la Raiders! The first three Indy movies take place in 1935, 1936 and 1938, and Captain America then kicks off in 1942 (even Crystal Skull still works in this universe…if you want… Like, really want…) WATCH MORE MOVIES!!!

Captain Marvel don't need (to be in) no Civil War!

So as I kinda predicted, the latest entry in the MCU - Captain Marvel* - is going to be another billon dollar movie.
Great movie - already seen it twice. I liked the mystery/detective nature of the plot, even if we all knew she would work out who she was eventually. The unleashing of her power at the end was exceptional. The twists and turns were great. Ben Mendelsohn's character was fantastic (and I love how his Skrull accent is just his straight Aussie one!). And the Stan Lee cameo was pure gold.
I also thought the 90s setting worked really well, and loved Easter Eggs alluding to the broader MCU before and after the events in this movie (especially with Nick Fury ... I mean ... just "Fury", Phil Coulson and a certain Tesseract). 
And the music was pretty much spot on. 
Pretty much...
And this is where the rant begins.
The ONE musical cue that didn't gel for me was "Come As You Are". It came off as someone trying to be cool and grungey by putting in Nirvana's probably most-accessible song, without actually being OG fans.
Not only that, but it just doesn't make sense - it comes on when we're inside Carol's head when she sees the Supreme Intelligence in 1995 (one year after Kurt Cobain committed suicide, incidentally), but she hadn't been back to Earth since 1989. How would she know this song?!? It just doesn't make sense (unlike ever other thing that happens in that movie)!!
So, what to replace it with?
Well, she DID wear a Guns'N'Roses shirt back when she was on Earth - how about a G'N'F'N'R song?
And that's when I got it - "Rocket Queen" from the awesome Appetite for Destruction (which just happens to be my favourite song from that album back in the day). 
If you're unfamiliar with it, please enjoy:


Not only is the title perfect for Captain Marvel, but even the lyrics work (kinda) when she's meeting the Supreme Intelligence:

"Here I am 
And you're a rocket queen 
I might be a little young but honey I ain't naive" 

Feel free to play it over Come As You Are when you're in cinemas going forward.

Can't wait to see her (and the rest of the gang) in Avengers: Endgame! 

* For those unfamiliar with the Captain, this is a good intro: Marvel's Captain Marvel Prelude

To Infinity War ... and Beyond!!!

So I saw Avengers: Infinity War the week it came out and, of course, I loved it. Had a great big smile on my face the whole time, as all of these heroes and villains that have been built up by the MCU over the past ten years all came together. It was funny, action-packed and, ultimately, tragic. And the villain, Thanos, had an understandable, if horrific, motivation* (and it's really Thanos' movie, which was an interesting twist). 
Consequently, I was a little concerned when I then saw an article entitled "The rot has set in for superhero movies" by Charles Purcell. What did he know that I didn't about my beloved MCU?!? 
However, on reading the article, it became obvious that the heading was just hyperbolic clickbait since, as evidence, he cited the following: 

"The signs of the rot can be seen in Avengers: Infinity War, which despite boasting the biggest box-office opening of all time has been savaged by the critics. The Sydney Morning Herald correctly claimed it had “the emotional depth of a puddle”. **  

Even James Cameron, the man behind testosterone fests The Terminator and Aliens, has come out against the wave of superhero sagas. 

“It’s just, come on guys, there are other stories to tell besides hypergonadal males without families doing death-defying things for two hours and wrecking cities in the process,” he said." 

It was therefore more likely that he simply didn't like the movie, similar to the reviewer from the New Yorker who just didn't get it, with apparently one of that reviewer's "biggest grievances being that it relied too much on the groundwork set in the movies that came before it": 

"Avengers: Infinity War would make little sense in the absence of its pack of predecessors. Its characters aren’t introduced; they just show up, and their behavior is entirely defined by the template set for them in other movies. Not only does Avengers: Infinity War presume that viewers have seen all the preceding films in the Marvel series but, worse, it presumes that they’ve thought about them afterward." 

Incidentally, that reviewer was roasted on the internet, with one cheeky wag saying: 

“I tuned into the series finale of Breaking Bad and I’m very confused. Who is Walt? Why should I care about Jesse? These characters are undeveloped and just show up out of nowhere.”

— Mr. Speaker Bustus Jurkitt (@justusburkitt) April 27, 2018

But getting back to Mr Purcell, maybe he just didn't like superhero movies generally, and had been predicting their demise for years now, as one of the commenters on his article (Timothy O'Toole) pointed out. This was one of only two comments that appeared to disagree with Mr Purcell, with the other commenters being moderately, to effusively, agreeable (including one who went all the way, saying he "Couldn't agree more")! 
So I had to redress the balance!
I submitted a comment, but it wasn't approved. So I submitted it again. And then again. After around seven times, I remembered that Mr Purcell didn't like confronting reality, so thought I would just publish it here!: 

"Couldn't disagree more! 

But surely Mr Purcell is using sarcasm in claiming that there are signs of "rot" in a super-fun movie making all the moneys and being watched by heaps of the peoples, and especially in claiming that the same movie has been "savaged by the critics" when it has an 84% rating from critics on ROT-ten Tomatoes (see what he and I did there?), not to mention the 92% rating from audiences! 

I refuse to believe that he's being sincere and only selectively reading the very few reviews that agree with this hilarious premise. 

Also, claiming vindication from comments by James Cameron, who made the most boring movie of all time (Titanic) and the most tedious movie of all time (Avatar) is clearly trolling of the highest order! Well-played, sir! 

Ant-Man and The Wasp is definitely going to get a boost from this amazing movie in a few months’ time, not to mention the must-watch Captain Marvel and Avengers 4 movies next year. I look forward to Mr Purcell's articles when those movies also go gang-busters...I mean...when they tank due to all this rot (wink, wink)! 

But in the meantime - bring on Deadpool 2! What a time to be alive!!" 

On second thoughts, that comment is pure gold. There's no way Mr Purcell would have deliberately refused to publish my comment - he's missing out! I'll let him know that he can read it here - gotta spread that superhero love! 

* Thanos' motivation actually reminded me a lot of Ra's al Ghul from the DC Universe. But not one other thing reminded me of their most-recent superhero mash-up movie...that we won't speak of... 
** Ironically, every one of the four comments on that linked article disagreed with, or plain didn't like, that review! That guy knows how to approve a comment!