Comic Review: X-Men '92.

If there was one single crystalline thing I can think of in my youth that I can say got me into comic books, it was probably the X-Men cartoon series.

It was a truly genre defining element of the after school lineup when I was 6 or so. It was the typical high octane goodies kicking the crap out of baddies that you would find on any action cartoon of the time, but filled with an incredible depth of kid-friendly social commentary. All the strongest characters were women, and the main villain had a justifiable motivation of his own. There was serious complexity to be found at 4pm on weekday afternoons. We absorbed that stuff, us kids did.

We watched Beast be unfairly denied bail and go to prison, just because he was a mutant. We saw the legacy virus ravage the mutant population, and watched mutants be ostracized for it even though it could spread to anyone. The setting may have been fictional, but the problems were real, and there was a lot to learn from in these stories.

X-Men ran for 5 years, and a lot of people that grew up with it still consider it their favorite adaptation of a comic book property. The incarnations of certain characters here, like the outrageously accented Gambit and Rogue, or the nefariously evil arch-villain Apocalypse, are considered by many to be the finest versions of the characters in any medium.

It would seem impossible to return to the halcyon days of the X-Men Animated series, but indeed, through the miracle of science (and Secret Wars) it seems we've done it. This week, X-Men '92 #1 comes out, and brings up back to that world we left so long ago. Yellow spandex and all.

The first issue of X-Men '92 brings us back to the halls of Xavier's school for gifted youngsters (where else?) where class is in session under the guiding hands of professor McCoy. When class is interrupted by the return of a mysterious villain from the past, and his messages of a great evil to come, it kicks off what promises to be an entirely original plot, with some new characters introduced too.

It's good to see characters back in old costumes again, eyesore outfits from decades past and personalities echoed we'd long forgotten. The tongue is planted quite firmly in the cheek for the overall style, with writers Sims and Bowers clearly aware that the same audience who loved the cartoon are probably all roundabout 30, and play to that idea well. There's even some cameos from mutant characters I personally thought I'd never see again (Long live the X-Statix!). The artwork of Alti Firmansyah fits perfectly, being both reminiscent of the cartoon whilst still being sharp and stylish.

It will be very fun to see what direction X-Men '92 takes in the long run. The time frame of 1992 is less a hard fact and more a rough suggestion of the zeitgeist, as we see movie posters for films that hadn't been released as of 1992 for example. With virtually no ties to the rest of the Marvel universe as it currently exists, the story bears none of the burden that comes with upholding the collective canon. What other characters will turn up? What accent will they write Pyro with? Only time will tell.

Official Doomtown Fiction: 'The Prodigal'

My Fifth official Doomtown story, The Prodigal

Movie Review: The Brothers Grimsby.

It can't be easy to top a previous success in comedy, and Sacha Baron Cohen has been a successful man over the years. With characters of enduring worldwide popularity like Ali G and Borat, Cohen is one of Britain's top comedy personalities, but one that also refuses to continue using the same old characters forever. Starting up another new character with that kind of expectation is a laborious task. His previous offering, The Dictator, was hilarious, but no one seems to have seen it. With the films of Cohen, everything falls on the shoulders of the character he's playing, and Admiral General Aladeen just wasn't Borat.

With The Brothers Grimsby, Cohen makes a slight departure from the styles of his earlier films, by not making his own character the be all end all focus of the narrative, but a partner in both plot and screentime with the other titular character.

Nobby Butcher is a hard drinking working class football fan from Grimsby, the arse end of the worst part of North England. He lives a happy life with his nine kids in his council flat, but still holds out a candle for his brother Sebastian, who he has been separated from for 25 years.

When Nobby gets a tip off that Sebastian has been seen by a friend attending a swanky black tie benefit party, he runs off to try and reunite with his beloved brother at any cost.

Sebastian turns out to be Britain's top spy, on a mission to stop a high profile assassination attempt, and thanks to the interference of his long lost brother, misses the shot he was aiming for, gets himself on a kill order from MI6, and sets off a chain of events that could lead to the apocalypse (and gives Harry Potter AIDS, but that's a whole different subplot)

Sebastian's character is the ideal British secret agent, suave, sophisticated, skilled. Nobby is an England fan who doesn't want to drop his pint as they run from bullet spraying bad guys. It's not hard to see where the movie goes with this dynamic. You can't say it's sophisticated humor, by any means, but it is funny, if you have the stomach for it.

The Brothers Grimsby really does push the limits of taste in every respect, and if you thought it would be tough to top the gross out sweaty naked wrestling from Borat or the sexual escapades of Bruno, you'd be very much mistaken. Some sequences you'll witness here simply can't be unseen, and you will know what an elephant gang bang looks like from the inside, and you'll have to live with that image forever. Scene by scene gets wilder and weirder, and certainly breaks the barrier of good taste in more impressive and disgusting ways than any other major motion picture you'll likely see for a long time.

The film as a whole is very very English, and some humour might get missed by foreign audiences, (Nobby himself being a grotesque effigy of Liam Gallagher) but it's often used in some pretty clever ways, and there's some solid laughs to be found specially for UK audiences, especially if you're a football fan.

The Brothers Grimsby isn't as iconic as Ali G, and it isn't as clever as Borat, and it may simply be too gross for many viewers. What it does have is some good laughs, some very en pointe modern references, shockingly brilliant action sequences that will surprise with their sheer technical execution, and a surprisingly heartfelt message in between all the arse jokes and jabs at Man U. Having as much screen time dedicated to Sebastian as well as Nobby is a wise move on Cohen's part, and the film feels more like a whole, rather than just a character piece as a result. I can't imagine the characters here will resurface at any point like Cohen's more classic incarnations, but while they're here, they're good for a laugh.