Mike Hofner Presents The Uncanny X-Blog

My family spent last night watching Race to Witch Mountain. While I thoroughly expected a miserable and droning film, I was surprised to find myself engrossed, laughing along and anticipating just how they would find their way in the end. I was particularly struck by the movie's use of the alien children's powers. While they did a great job not making the abilities too powerful, I could not help but compare them to how the X-Men’s' powers are portrayed.

My X-Men exposure consists of the 1980's cartoon series, with the modern movies adding depth, taken with a grain of Hollywood salt, and a few of the original comic books thrown in for good measure. It was the cartoon series I first fell in love with. After renting and watching a four part mini-series titled Of Good and Evil, I was hooked. There was something about the characters that drew me in, made them somehow real. I think the best I can describe it is like this. When I was younger, I watched He-Man. He-Man was just strong. There really wasn't much else to him, no truly discernable underlying personality. But Wolverine, now he has character. He is angry, confused, his mind drawn in two different directions; but at the same time he is fiercely loyal, proud and sacrificially protective of his friends. He and all the other X-Men characters have built in histories, tensions that haunt them as they confront their past and fight for their futures.

A scene from Witch Mountain piqued my interest. It was not some major battle scene in which the 'children' were displaying the prowess of their powers, it was a scene in which they were beginning their five mile hike to the mountain. Here was a girl who could control matter and she and her friends were walking. Images flashed in my mind of the group sailing over the terrain, each standing on a slab of rock which followed her bidding. At least that's what Magneto would have done (allowing that his rocks would have contained veins of iridium of ore, thus allowing him to manipulate them).

Stan Lee, the creator of the X-Men, and all the others who over the years have contributed to them have done a spectacular job of finding creative ways to use the mutant’s powers. While they sometimes use brute force to get a job done, they often use subtler, more simple ways to find a solution to their current predicament. From Colossus using his metallic form to bash through a wall to Wolverine touching a badly hurt Rogue’s skin, allowing her to ‘steal’ his regenerative powers and survive, the creative uses of their powers is seemingly limitless.

I recently watched a cartoon episode where Morph, a mutant who can shape shift into the form of any other person and who had previously been one of my least favorite characters, was facing the demons of his past, made real in the present in the form of the Sentinels, giant robots whose sole purpose is the elimination of all mutants. Morph has missed the last 40+ episodes after almost being killed by the same robotic threat. In this episode, as the other X-Men were fighting a losing battle, Morph, who’s mutant ability to mimic other people amazingly includes the assuming their powers, singlehandedly used a myriad of other mutants’ powers to defeat the Sentinels. He then again faded out of the series, citing the fact that he needed to continue his mental recovery, saying “I came through today, but what about next time?” Even in his triumph, the writers have built in enough character depth for Morph to admit his continued struggles and gracefully bow back out of the series.

As I come to the end of today’s blog, I find myself in a strange place. While I have most successfully imparted all I had originally hoped, I seemingly had no directive other than to share my thoughts. Thus I find myself without a clear lesson or thought to wrap all my ramblings into a cohesive ending. So I will leave you to draw your own conclusions and I will set the computer aside and turn my full attention to this week’s Bears game.