I am proud to be a nerd, a geek, and total dweeb for the things I love. And one of the best things about being a nerd is that you are never alone in your passions. One of my passions came to full vivid life on my television screen every Saturday morning. From those 30 minutes of commercial-interrupted bliss, I learned about a group of mutants, The X-Men, a tenuous union of individuals with cool powers that lived and/or battled together in their quest for a place in this crazy world.
Who doesn’t love the thought of having fantastical powers? Apparently, most of the X-Men don’t. Their powers have a tendency to isolate them from normal society. Simply put, mutants don’t fit in, not even within each other, due to the vast variety and magnitude of each mutant’s unique power. Yet even with all of these differences, time and time again, these mighty mutants come together to fight off one enemy, or another. In this vein, nerds from all walks of life have a very distinct opinion of what the new in-development X-Men television show should be like. So I thought, instead of just highlighting my own personal aspirations for Fox’s TV show, I’ve decided to assemble:
The X-NERDS!! X-Men fans and their dream of X-Men on FOX!
X-Nerd #1: Justin Stone
Fantasy Power: Telepathy and telekinesis
Favorite Mutant: Magneto
Current favorite comic book TV Show: The Flash
His dreams for the show: Total crossover awesomeness!
As a hardcore believer in adhering to comic book storylines, this X-Nerd would love to see FOX stay true to the story and to avoid messing with time-honored lore. As a devourer of comic books himself, he would love to see the X-Men show to take place in the near present. Ideally, he’d love to see “Civil War” or the “Secret Invasion” story-arcs come to colorful and complicated life. And then of course, this would lead into “Dark Reign,” but there’s always a Season 3, right??
Give this man some third person ensemble love with the core characters in the spot light! We’re talking Wolverine, Jean-Grey, Cyclops, Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Professor X. He’d really like the story to stay focused on these heavy-hitters in the X-Men world and for FOX to avoid too much attention to lesser characters.
Justin also wants the show to stay serious, and to allow the bigger picture to always take precedence. In other words, he would prefer it to steer clear of styles such as Smallville and Dawson’s Creek. Petty relationship babble, be damned!!! Give this nerd some intergalactic, mutant war and let worlds be conquered!!!!
X-Nerd #2: Meredith Woods
Fantasy Power: Telekinesis
Favorite Mutant: Gambit (hubba, hubba)
Favorite comic book TV Show: Arrow
Her Dreams for FOX’s show: A cautionary tale of the future!!
Meredith loves the apocalyptic future in the X-Men universe and would love the new series to be based in the future world of the Sentinels. Her story would be centered on Bishop and his journey into his leadership role as the world crumbles. She wants FOX to show us what his future is like, and how he came to carry the “M” brand on his cheek. The mystique that has always surrounded this character is compelling, and she wants it in vivid color before her! Apart from Bishop, her show would highlight lesser-known mutants, instead of the famously cinematic ones.
Diving into the future would also allow new storylines to emerge, while cherry-picked plots from the comic book would tie in hardcore fans without offending them by attempting to follow the books verbatim. Meredith wants to avoid the creation of a show that spurs furious (and annoying) comparison debates. The audience can invest in new stories, sprinkled with homages to the classics.
Since each mutant is incredibly unique, Meredith also likes the idea that social, racial, and cultural diversity can easily be celebrated without distracting from a great story line. Some mutants are ambiguous in gender and/or race, opening the door to fascinating characters that defy demographic labeling.
X-Nerd #3: J.J. Weber
Fantasy Power: Walking through walls.
Favorite Mutant: Kitty Pryde (but not the cinematic version)
Current Favorite Comic Book Show: The Flash
His dreams for FOX’s show: Bringing back the 80’s mutant style!
J.J. holds the New Mutants close to his heart and his dream television show would bring these fledgling X-Men into the spotlight. He likes the thought of seeing the mutants through a younger more retro-hip treatment. The show would take place in the New Mutant time frame, starting somewhere in the 1970s and moving into the 1980s. Colorful skin-tight costumes are a must for this nerd! Cypher and Warlock would steal the spotlight with their dynamic partnership as the central characters, offering infinite possibilities for amazing visuals! I mean, seriously, don’t tell me you don’t want to see the gestalt form of these two characters in disco-era, teenage fabulousness!!!
Marketable as all get-out, J.J. would still stay true to actual characters and would avoid creating characters just to meet demographic demands for viewership. He feels that the source material is diverse enough, and his perfect show wouldn’t pander to commercialism just to make the sponsors happy! He ain’t no sell-out!!
X-Nerd #4: Daisy De La Torre
Fantasy Power: Rogue’s powers
Favorite Mutant: Rogue
Favorite Comic Book Show: X-Men (cartoon because Rogue is in it)
Her Dreams for FOX’s X-Men: More Rogue
ROGUE, ROGUE, ROGUE! This nerdy gal has a bit of an obsession! Daisy wants nothing more than to see the tragic, super-powerful, Southern belle come to her television screen. From her small-town upbringing, maternal betrayal, and unrequited love story with Gambit, Rogue’s origin and storyline has enough fodder for season after season. As a central character in the X-Men saga, Rogue arguably makes for a fantastic central character and offers endless adventures starting from a her Podunk beginnings all the way to intergalactic madness! And don’t even mention Anna Paquin around this die-hard Rogue fanatic, she might claw your eyes out.
X-Nerd #5: Lee Vanwallene
Fantasy Power: Telekinesis
Favorite Mutant: Iceman
Favorite Comic Book Show: The Flash
His Dreams for FOX’s X-Men: Dig deep into the psyche of the mutants!
For Lee, the beauty of the show would be in the profound first-person character development of each member of the core X-Men team and their foe. In a manner similar to J.J. Abrams’ LOST, Lee would like to create episodic and very intimate biopics of each of the characters. Each episode would come from the point of view of one mutant at a time, showing their perspective and conflict as they live out the comic book story lines. You might even need to bring a tissue because Lee’s version of the X-Men would cut deep to the true psychological motivations of your favorite characters. It’s like a Freudian playground with super powers!
Each of these individual point-of-view episodes would tie into one underlying story-arc. The first season of Lee’s dream X-Men would be Team Assemble with the season finale as the Battle of Magneto. He’d like to see the original core group: Jean-Grey, Cyclops, Beast, Iceman, Angel, Professor X, etc. Season two would pit our team again Mr. Sinister and also draw some focus into Jean-Grey and Cyclops relationship drama. The third season would be a treatment of the Savage Land storyline.
And while Wolverine is indeed an important character in the X-Men core group, Lee is frankly tired of his character getting the spotlight, and would prefer him to stay in the sidelines. Without hating on his dynamic and wonderful storyline, this nerd feels that he’s been overdone by the cinematic world and is losing his gravitas in place of a more commercialized persona. Let his story rest, while taking a much closer look at his comrades.
X-Nerd #6: Chris Calilung
Fantasy Power: Absorbing information visually (see it, know it)
Favorite Mutant: Chamber
Favorite Comic Book TV Show: The Tick
His dreams for FOX’s show: X-Men detective agency
As a big fan of the X-Factor Investigation storyline, Chris would love to see a private investigation television show taking place in the 1990s. With Multiple Man as his central character, the X-Factor team would investigate mutant mysteries with each episode. Multiple Man himself offers a plethora of opportunities for creative drama and action since his copies tend to incarnate different aspects of his original psyche. He’s a flawed antihero, as his incarnations come to life; they hold different facets of his personalities and can act independent of his original self. This would give his character a vivid spectrum of motivations and conflicts, since he is partially to blame for the actions of his more naughty copies, as they are parts of him, isolated from the whole. The flood gates of fascinating possibilities emerge from Multiple Man and his fellow mutants and they sleuth out unsolved mysteries.
Chris would like the show to break free from the cinematic versions as he finds them restrictive. He would like the television writers and creative members to be free to dream up new storylines and characters, so long as it adds to the depth and plot of the existing world. Superfluous subplots for the sake of ratings or more popular characters would dampen this nerd’s dream television show, and he’ll have none of it!
So you crazy X-Men fanatics out there, I’d love to hear what you want to see come to life. Feel free to comment below, the possibilities are truly endless!
Diva Del Mar
Interested in picking up some well-written graphic novels? Please use our Amazon links to do so!
