446 – Live at the Magnetosphere

I think I view Astra as the Pete Best or Stuart Sutcliffe of the Brotherhood, the one’s who left the band (The Beatles in their case) before it hit it big.

I adore the fact she just looked at the macho posturing, decided “Okay, he’s hot but he’s not worth this shit”, and just noped out of there to galavant across the galaxy like your eccentric aunt who goes abroad and picks up weird souveniers, though someone actually just going and BUYING superadvanced alien tech to use on Earth is one we should see more of (With the possible excception of the X-Cutioner, I can’t think of others who do)

I get the same sort of vibe from her as I do from the X-Men’s other cosmic scale teleporter, Lila Cheney… Given Astra is drawn as being slightly older (for a comic book value of older) one might wonder at a connection?

Her last line is a classic too “You ruined YEARS… okay, months, weeks… of hard work!” admitting that this vast, over-complicated, near world-emnding scheme was simply something she set up in a few days.

I do wish we’d seen her again properly, but I like to think she’s out there still, in the markets of alien worlds picking up alien tech terinkets, between partying her ass off as she plans her NEXT scheme.

You didn’t mention that Vindaloo is the first Acolyte, indeed possibly the first comic book character, to be named after a type of curry, which given his ability to breath fire, seems fairly apt, and VERY Alan Davis (Remembering the naming convention he developed for the Warpies)

As for the new cartoon I, like Jay, have no real nostlgia filter for it. It was something that was on TV but I was much more interested in Batman:The Animated Series, especially when X-Men did seem to be more of an action figure launchpad at times (Would we ever have had a Commcast figure without the cartoon?)

But I am likewise impressed at teh speedrun through major storylines they are managing, actually making the Jean/Maddie situation messier and more disturbing as well as more interesting than the comics ever did. And the Genosha episode was affecting, though I suspect the “Easy out” route will be taken by season end.

I also found the lack of shift in team line up to be a bit disappointing. I know there are iconic members, but this is approaching stagnation.

Plus, I’m getting irritated by the “Hah, you thought the trailer showed you characters who would be featured, but it’s actually a two second Morph cameo! Psych!”.

Do NOT show me a Russian accented Magik in a New Mutants costune (and as Darkchylde) unless you are going to address the New Mutants as a concept in the show. Ditto Psylocke etc…