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New X-Men Xtrospective Part 3: Imperial (NXM #121-126)

To me all you happy people! And welcome back to my X-Citing look at Morrison’s Masterwork on Marvel’s Merry Mutants!  Part One is HERE, Part Two is HERE if you feel like it. 

If not... to catch you up on last time....

All Caught up? Good. Join me under the cut as our heroes head into this old woman’s hedd to see what’s wrong and fight off an alien army while horribly ill. 

Silent, Psychic Rescue in Process:

So we pick up not long after we left off: Thanks to Beast waking up from his bat induced coma, the X-Men now know Charles is trapped in Cassandra’s body and she pulled a Freaky Friday on him, with marginally less bullets. 

And thus we get this issue. This one was part of Nuff Said, an incredibly clever theme month by Marvel and one I wish they’d try and do again at some point in some form. 

The gimmick was simple but amazing: Every issue would be mostly silent, with at most some dialouge at the start and finish to bookend it. So far i’ve only read two issues of this, this one and the X-Statix one, but it is a genuinely great idea. I do think forcing it on the entire line was a bit much, but as I said I do wish they’d do this again just make it optional: have some books opt in or do some annuals with the theme. It’s just a fun break from the usual and with this issue resulted in one of the best single issues of x-men period. 

Naturally given the name, which is cleverly displayed on a sign the x-men have because of course they do, it’s exaclty that: Emma and Jean after readying themselves (Jean kisses Scott goodbye and Emma downs a bottle of jack because why not do an alchol before doing delecate mental surgery), head in. 

Inside they find horrific old lady head doors, stone ol dlady heads around a tower that shoot lasers, and said doors also bite and puke weird goop because it’s Grant Morrison. This is his chance to just go full balls out weird.. and given last time involved skin flake golemns.. and this isn’t even the weirdest he’s done. As mentioned last time he once had a supervillian run for president using a super LSD Bike that made everyone high. 

And just to prove he can reach that level of weirndess we find charles alone, naked and with an overenlarged brain.. before he transitions Jean to a field of sperm. 

Yeah... but this DOES have a point.. as it turns out it’s a meaphorical transition into his gestation as a baby.. and how he had a twin. Yeah turns out Cassandra was not lying he did try to kill her.. but as you can probably tell by the fact she’s a genocidal sociopath, she lied by omission to screw with Hank: In the womb she tried strangling Charles to death with his own umbilical cord..only for him to use baby’s first psonic blast to send her reeling and his mom tumbling down the stairs and well.. you can probably guess the rest. Yeah.. Cassandra’s entire origin story is concentrated 

And I love it. The sheer audacity is nice and everything but what makes it really work for me is the simple concept: An evil version of charles, one almost born at the same time whose every bit as evil as he is good.. granted there’s a TON of Morally Grey in Charles Xavier ESPECIALLY post decimation and even more so now with Krakoa. But he’s sitll at his heart a well meaning person, while Cassandra at her heart is a racist genocidal nightmare. She is pure evil, with enough personality to not make her boring.. and more importanlty all the power charles has but NONE of his restraint. Part of what makes Charles noble is he only uses his powers when necessary. Cassandra.. has no such restraint and will happily mentally snap necks all day. 

So with this our heroine’s leave and we end on the iconic line “Professor Xavier killed his twin sister in the womb. We Really ought to talk. 

This issue is an utter classic. It finally explains Cassandra a bit while still leaving a ton of questions, Frank Quitely is at his best here, and he and morrison are incrediby good at non verbal storyteling. The result is surreal, unsettling and awesome. Check it out. Seriously seek this one out it’s worth the trip. It’s so famous it was homaged with a spirtual sequel in the recent Giant Size X-Men one shots. It’s excellent stuff

Imperial:

So with our first issue we open with things going terrible on that flag ship Cassandra took off on with Lilandra, empress of the Shiar and Xavier’s space wife. She’s revealed herself, is ravaging the ship and mind rapes a the helmsman into crashing it, so with no other options Lilandra sends Smasher, not the one from the avengers run earlier version, to earth to send a warning to the X-Men. 

At the School things are actually going well for a second. In an intresting move the school is changing things up with no officla timetable.. which I think means there’s no rigid class schedule and you can just do them as you please or as necessary for your power. The plan’s the same, they just want to learn from each other in building mutant society and the future. It’s ideas like this that are the bedrock of the current run and were sadly never fully realized here.. but I don’t blame this run for that. Morrison had 2-3 years and it was cut short early, leading to a rather disapointing ending we’ll get to. They never had a chance to really dig in because they were kicked out by morons and then their whole grand design was undone until Hickman un-undid it in 2019. And even then some of this like the idea of mutant culture and what not hasn’t been picked up on yet. I do mean YET, as given the sheer NUMBER of x books touching on all sorts of subjects, it’s only a matter of if not when. 

As for who’s behind this it’s a combination of Jean and Charles: Jean is using charles notes and is going at full tilt. Scott is concerned though.. both about her since she went Phoenix and Logan told him about it and because these plans may alarm the humans. ON the former Jean just brushes him off which is not right.. given what happened with the phoenix force copy of jean, which granted had her personality, memories and powers and Jean later got a set of her memories so it might as well of been and only MAYBE the genocide is something Jean wouldn’t of done under the same circumstances, he’s understandably concerned. He lost her to it last time and it did weird shit to poor Rachel, who hif you don’t know is their daughter from an alternate timeline... because the Summer’s family tree is a WAKING NIGHTMARE. Thankfully I don’t have to untangle it because there’s a handy chart right here to do it for me that was recently released in X-Men Legends, a new series featuring legendary x creators telling stories in the cracks... and given we’re getitng storys by the simosons and peter motherfucking david, yeah good stuff.

And why yes there are more than one clone in this tree and several alternate timelines. , not to mention several clones and a sexy cat lady, it’s complicated is understnading it and i’m not sure what properly states it honestly. Also if your wondering about Adam there he’s the genetic son of Cyclops mom and the ma Shiar empreror who killed her for not sleeping with him through. Again it’s complicate REALLY feels like understatement. 

Point is he DOES have a right to be worried about the thing that lead to her being cocooned for a while and left their daughter in the future at the time of this... just in case you needed a reminder after that wonderful clusterfuck of a chart up above athe x-men are really fucking weird. 

So Jean brushing that off is not okay. She does however call him out on the second one and rightfully so: This isn’t some dominate the humans manifesto: this is simply changing the course of the future and how they teach their students to create a better one instead of adhering to human norms to try and appease “the republicans’, as jean puts it.. which has only gotten MORE RELEVANT, 20 years on: Attempts to appease the norms of society and things “just because that’s how it’s been” have never been a good thing. It’s why the very writer of this comic took several decades to properly identify themselves as non binary because people were too stuck int heir ways to try and see if there really were just two genders. Fighting against the grain, finding new ways to express things that have always been there... it’s what humanity needs to do and certainly what comes after us would need to do. i’ts how we get better as a race. If something’s not working we change it, quickly or slowly. And given Scott’s huge amount of emotoinal repression lately.. I can see why she’d see the former complaint as just him being a dick as opposed to the genuine concern it is. 

Short Version: Jean Grey is fucking awesome and while he’d be the last to write her for decades, no one did it better than Grant and no one has since.  Hopefully Gerry Duggan can clear that bar. 

After this fight we get a fuller verson of what happened both at the end of issue 120 and in the big reveal last issue: Turns out Hank awoke because Charles piloted his body like a truck and needed it revealed fast. Hank’s regained control of his body and facilities by now, but in a twist of irony he helpfully points out, had Cassandra not gone a needlessly cruel and sociopathic tangent and had Beak beat Beast into a coma, Charles wouldn’t of had a body. 

As for Charles in cass’ body he’s now in a tub of goo created by it. 

It acts as a shield as well as melding him with Cerebra so he can talk to jean telepathically as his thoughts are very weak.

Thanks to this and her psychic Jaunt, Jean now knows just what the hell cassandra is: She really is Charles twin sister. As for how the hell she surivied outside of the womb and how Charles never knew, she created herself a clone body using his cells and didn’t fully manifest till now. And while she has plenty of intellegence, at an emotional level she’s fully convinced, much like an infant that only she and charles are real and thus destroying him means gaining domance over her world. So in short she’s both utterly insane and now has an interstellar empire at her fingertips. 

And the news SOMEHOW get sworse: She booby trapped her body and charles only has days before he’s vegatable, having put every psychological disease possible in there, and she’s probably responsible for their colds and the u-men. So in short their pretty scrwed but at the very least Charles plans to try to flip things, use the fact their now public (a clear tactic to weaken them) to share his manefesto, his last will and testiment if you would. 

Scott meanwhile figures since their sick a healer might be a good idea and goes solo to fetch Xorn... who just sorta disappeared after the annual and didn’t return till his arc. 

We get an utterly touching scene after this: With Logan staying on his hobbit like toes in case of another attack, Jean goes to talk to hank. Hank is still throughly traumatized from the attack, fearing Cassandra is right and he’ll just keep devlovling until he ends up in a metamoprhisis type situation. I mean it’s not ALL bad hank,.. I mean going through that guarantees a musical about you. 

But Jean reassures him: It’s okay to be afraid of her, they all are.. but as she puts it...

It’s a really powerful inspiring scene... and really afirms how well Morrison writes Jean from the previous arc onward. She’s confident, powerful.. but also caring and compassionate. Here hank’s at his lowest, disparing that this might get worse.. and she reaffirms that htis evolution is an upgrade.. he may not be the same.. but that’s okay. He’s better. It really speaks to the core message of the X-Men as a whole and why they’ve stuck around all this time: It’s not just okay your diffrent.. it’s WONDERFUL. Your wonderful for being you. Whatever meataphor you read into it, it’s at it’s core a message that no matter who hunts you or trys to shame you for what you are, they are wrong and you are wonderful. And you are not alone... your people are out there.. and they will go through hell to protect you. It’s moments like this that remind me despite the bad parts, the accidnetal transphobic metaphor last time, a subplot with Hank coming up, the affair storyline and Planet X, just.. Planet X.. this run is special to me for a reason. It has heart, character and truly gets how the x-men should work, what makes them great... while making something NEW AND FRESH from it’s bones. Pushing envelopes, chanigng things for good and shaking things the hell up after far too much stagnation. It’s just pure good comicy goodness and i’m proud to finally be talking about it after having always wanted to. 

So as we end the issue Scott grabs Xorn, whose been at a budist temple all this time, and Smasher arrives to warn earth... but his warning missed his intended target. 

Well at least he got to Hellcow’s coven.. maybe she can call in Man Eating Cow and the Chick Fill A Super Cows.. thought hey might not help. Their parent company IS pretty homophobic.. I doubt their high on mutants either. 

Testament Emma and Jean talk over things how i’ts going etc, with Emma unsuprisingly annoyed with most of the students and Jean optimsitc.

But Emma soon has bigger issues to deal with: TEEN ANGST!

Yeah 4/5 of the Cuckoos are upset Esme has a boyfriend. Their concerns in part are because without her their apparently powerless.. which given one will die and another will leave and they’ll be left with three is just factually not true, and either Morrison changed his mind later, or more likely their simply exagerating like teens do. Emma points out it’s pointless to fight this...

So... their in a domestically abusive relationship rife with sexual tension? Are you sure your not htinking of Sam and Diane, Ross and Rachel, Garfiled and Odie perhaps?

Meanwhile Angel’s sulking in a tree talking about how all the kids are stupid and she dosen’t fit in. That sort of thing. Wolverine naturally has a tactful and understandable response to this:

It’s here Angel goes from understandable, a bit hard edged and obnoxious becuase of a very rough life.. and just becomes annoying.  I do get what Grant was trying to do: he was trying to play with Wolverine’s habit of taking sassy teens under his wing by giving him a more hardscrabble one with a harder life pre-xaviers.. not that Jubilee’s was easy, but I get what he was going for.. he just dosen’t succeed. Instead of a realistic version of a teen sidekick she just comes off as an obnoxious brat whose rude to everyone including her one friend Logan and her later boyfriend.  It dosen’t help that ONCE AGAIN, Morrison flew directly into unfortunate implications without meaning to, by having the only major POC character (Bishop guest stars later and there are two significant characters during the Riot at Xaviers arc but both aren’t relevant before or after), be an abused teen with gross fly based powers and a teen pregnancy subplot. Seriously this isn’t even the LAST time Morrison shoves their foot in their mouth like this in this run. While I do like this run a lot, it’s still 20 years old and it’s still going to have a bunch of bits that have aged like harvarti left on a sidewalk, and handing out unfortnuate implications like their candy is tied for the biggest with their handling of Magneto when he finally shows up in person. It’s THAT bad a take on the character that it’s up there with accidental racisim and transphobia. 

So moving on from.. that we get Jean comforting the professor before meeting the press, giving a throughly lovely speech about how Charles got his powers 30 years ago and despite seeing the worst in humanity, used his telepathy to allow him to see past it and see deep down just how scared and alone we all felt. So she takes them into a psychic conference room and we get a very interesting exchange. 

It’s an interesting parallel to how real world disinfranchised groups, how it takes time.. but soon being a POC or LBGTQ+ goes from unrightfully perscuted to celebrated. How a group starts with hates whipsers on the fringe of things but grows to be accepted, like it always SHOULD have been. Take representation of Trans people in the media. It started with Trans people being almost entirely punchlines and sources of fucking horendous “DID DEY USED TO BE A MAN.” storylines and hurtful jabs at people who had transitioned, treating them as a sideshow instead of you know as fucking human beings. But now coming out as what you always were ont he inside is celebrated. Sure the right are dicks about it but they always will be: but most media gladly celebrates when someone comes out as trans. Same with being gay, or bi or pan or polamorus or nonbinary.  Hell I admire grant for showing i’ts not even 100% perfect once you are popular: you still have to grapple both with people wanting to copot your culture and those who still don’t understand you trying to speak for you. 

She also gets the standard question calling the X-Men an army, shoots it down with the normal global peacekeeping operation stuff.. then we get this bitch. 

Who quickly realizes she’s outclassed by Emma Frost, professional that bitch. And while Jean is understandbly going to have to erase that.. I can’t blame her for snapping her.

Just to tear this shit down.: The privacy thing is not something she’s doing. All she’s doing is spcyhic teleconfrencing, you harpy. They fight greek gods and monsters to protect your sorry ass and the last one.. just makes me absolutely livid and feels so much like a real world comment i’m suprised there isn’t a fox news logo next to her bigoted head. 

Trouble follows them everywhere they go.. because their mutants. They can’t help it. A LOT of shit like the demons, aliens, and gods and what not, I do not know if they actually did fight the greek gods but i’m not going to say for sure they did not, the norse gods defintely, not sure on greek. But the point is allt his stuff HAPPENS TO THEM half the time, or is a consequence of trying to PROTECT PEOPLE. I’m so nettled by this because this is how the marvel unvierse acts all the fucking time towards ALL super powered peoples. Mutants esepcailly but they blame the heroes and what not for being chased and harassed by guys in costumes or alien invasions or all the stuff they FIGHT. Sure sometimes they caused it but it’s either because of a monsterous person with a grudge or just because their powerful and some douche took an intrest. I’m just.. so fucking tired of asshole civlians in comics. It’s realisitc I know but it’s just hard to stomach after so many have turned their back on so many for such DUMB reasons. 

Jean recovers well pointing out the genocide and how 16 million people, 16 million possible einsteinss or mozarts are just GONE, and that their trying to focus on the future. She also brings up autistic savants who can talk to atoms and while I don’t like the use of the savant thing, as it brings to mind stuff like rainman I very badly want to see this autistic kid who can talk to atoms as someone on the spectrum myself. Also I just want the crew of HIckma’ns books in general to pour over this because there are a lot of intresting powers and personalities only MENTIONED we never saw proper that could be great characters. Just saying. 

Jean cocludes her speech to the world, including Logan whose wisely getting hammered at anearbye bar.. while Hank finds out what’s going on with their sickness.. nanonscopic sentnels in the blood. 

But while the press confrence ends well with Jean having won over the press.. things go sideways as not only is it clear Esme’s boyfriend is in fact something sinister.. but Jean falls over due to the nano snetinels, and senses Scott being taken in tibet, taken down by a group of the Shiar’s imperial guard.. picutre the legion of superheroes but blindly loyal to the goverment and far more likely to get killed. And the rest are preparing to attacking including Gladiator who if you don’t know him, has all the powers of superman as long as he retains his confidence. 

And it turns out Esme’s boyfriend is an advanced Scout, the shapeshifting amoeba blob thing Stuff, a new addition by morrison and good on him. And the Imperial Guard are here but with one goal

 Superdestroyer

On the Ship we find out both wha’ts going on with Scott and Xorn, they’ve been taken and why the shiar are attempting mutant genocide: Cassandra is puppeting ALL of them, has convinced them the mutants are infected and since Lilandra is a puppet, Scott’s words fall on deaf ears. 

Meanwhile Wolverine ambushes one of the squads, kiling one named Dinosaurer via claw to the brain, while Emma has had a dome thing put over her head and isn’t transforming into diamond to counter it because...

But the Cuckoos fight back, taking out oracle before easily handling stuff since his brain is fairly simple.. and given he’s racist against solid people and unlike the others reveling in the genocide just a tad.. yeah what he deserves. So now with a living weapon the Cuckoos make peace with Angel as they need all the help they can get. 

Jean ushers the press into the panic room, not happy about it but not having anothe roption for their saftey. Hank tells her to self distruct crebra if cassandra get sclose and goes off to join the fight and let off some steam over the situation. Hank easily routes two of them, and one , Manta tries to just fly right ot jtean wince their TK proof. How does that go?

Jean gets to saftey after that, not that she needs it and hank is quickly taken down by a batch of Superguardians.. only for Wolverine to arrive in the Sknitt of time and chop them up.. oh and as one of the puts it...

Bad. Ass. I also like the addition of the flight patch, a nod to the Legion, who the Imperial Guard were based on as those kids used flight rings. 

But while Logan and Hank easily tag team these assholes...

The SHiar call in the big guns.. Gladiator.. and I wasn’t kidding abotu the superman thing. While Logan TRIES to talk him out of it, the murders only confirm Cassandra’s bullshit and Gladiator breaks into the panic room throwing hank and wolverin’e before them having utterly decimated them off panel. I mean Wolvie is a badass.. but even he has limits. I also like recontecullizing the guard as a whole here.. showing just how TERRIFYING they SHOULD be as enimies to the x-men. Yes our heroes did win.. but barely and only till Gladiator showed up. In most cases thier clearly holding back out of affection but here hteir just at errifying unstoppable force, and also apparently used to doing genocides like this. It takes what was a cheesy shout out to David Cockrums other big artistic work, and makes it horrifying and it is AWESOME. I admit to not having liked this arc as much for the longest time but this reread, the sheer teror and hopleessness as an interstellar superman easily cuts through our mighty mutants like tissue... it’s awesome. 

Thankfully one of the Guard found smasher.. and thus the truth comes out so our heroes are given a stay of execution with Gladiator clearly horrified at what he almost did and our heroes now so sick they can barely move and Hank can’t think them out of this. 

Thankfully he dosen’t has to as back in space, Cyclops tires of it and points out something Xorn, not being as experinced nor having delt with the guard ahd thought of: G-Type, the glowly guy about to execute them, is made of solar energy.. and xorn can manipulate that thanks to his star brain. He does, they take out the rest.. and prepare to go save the day.

Losers: PIcking up shortly before where we left off we see Cassandra murder Lilandra’s advisor who figured out what she was just as our heroes escape.. and as Cassandra is having Lilnadra order all of the shiar ships to immolate themselves. 

WIth Lilandra not being any use, Cass tries to psychically force her to commit sucidie but jumping off a space ledge but Xorn saves her. Cass tries another turn at mentally breaking an x-man, pointing out all scott’s recent flaws, his increased repression his faling marriage and while it gets him to stop it dosen’t quite work as well as it did on hank, likely because at his heart Hank is simply a more emotive person. Though his REAL reason for stalling is he can’t kill charles.. which he muses just as the ship blows up real good. 

Meanwhile back at Campus the kids initaiate their plan, having Angel break in and take a dna sample. She also finds beak naked in a tank and decides eh why not and brings him with her. This ends up paying off as Beak suggests the obvious to get emma free.. just force the space guy they have over in the corner to do it. They do and it works

Back in the mansion our heroes prepare for Casssandra... but Jean and Logan object to saving her body, pointing out that getting hank to repair it is exactly what she wants, and that Jean feels she can save charles without uit, with Hank being understandably doubtful given their current condition.. but Jean’s real plan is to put charles in her head and it’s already too far in actoin to stop now: she’s been saving his memories as they flaked off and if she dosen’t do this now there will be no charles left. 

Hank evacuates the civlians to teh danger room, and has an encounter with trish who tries to apologize and get him back.. only for him to rightfully regjecter her..a and then goes a step further by capping it off with:

Yeah on it’s own it’s not TERRIBLE. Still very dated to claim your gay just to spite someone, but for the time it was acceptable and compared to some of Morrison’s other gaffes in the run it’s minor at best. But it leads into a rather annoying subplot we’ll naturally get to that’s a much bigger issue, so i’ll save talking about it in full for when it comes up again. 

Jean manages to shove Chuck into her head, but is naturally leaking a bit and barely holding it or him together and may of overestimated herself just a tad.. while on the lawn Cassandra easily takes out the guards. That said the scene of Jean taking Chuck into her head is REALLY damn awesome. Jean is the arc MVP by a mile and Hank is pretty dang good competition. 

All Hell: We open the final issue of the arc with Scott and Xorn escaping the spaceship using some teleport tubes taking Arakai and Lilandra with them. 

We open with Cassadra utterly humilating gladiator while the kid team prepares to fight her despite you know, the 8 billion to 1 odds against them. 

Jean, despite hte discknes and trying to keep an old man in her brain marches out , prepared to fight, for the kids sake. For the world’s sake. But Logan’s easily taken out and with Jean barely holding it together.. the kids prepare to fight.. likely being slaughtered even if they mean well.. onlyf or help to finally arrive with Scott and Xorn glowy porting in. We get a really sweet , short moment with scott and jean...

Scott not knowing the situation tries to have Xorn heal charles first but since Cassandra’s body is dead and unoccupied that’s a no go.. he’s still usefult hough, curing Jean of her nanosentital sickness and moving on to Scott and Hank while there’s still time. 

We find out more about cassandra: She’s a murrmadi, a bodyless parasite.. eseetinally the dark first test a person faces... she just stuck around because she was one for a telepath.. the world’s STRONGEST telepath. But really other than that part the rest just feels like stuff we alreayd heard LAST TIME, mildly repaackaged and seems enitrley like filler to pad the issue out. 

So while Jean takes cerebra, both to keep it away from Cassandra’s plans of mutant genocide and for whatever she has planned, Scott, Hank and Xorn prepare to hold the line.. and as Jean mentions.. emma’s still out in the wild. 

So we get our climactic showdown.. logan, hank and xorn veruss cassandra, with Cassandra trying to do eveyrthing she can, tear them down mentally, throw out the students with our heroes fighting back best they can. It’s good stuff.  

Eventaully Cassandra gets to Jean.. but she’s already inacted her plan, putting a piece of Xavier’s mind in EVERY mutant, and giving Cassandra one ohell ofa reason you suck speech. 

It’s an incapsulation of what i said earlier and what the runs about: alone we are weak but together.. we just might make it. More on that as we go. But thanks to Cass naturally going fo rcerberba.. she accidently restores charles and is left bodyless.

Emma finishes the fight with her own brilliant gambit, presending cassandra her body.. but it’s actually stuff , reprogrammed into a sentient brain for her to inhabit and leaving her trapped, with Charles hoping t teach the now mentally reset Cassandra.  So Cassandra is beat, the virus is stopped, and our heroes have one.. but naturally for this run.. there’s one last suprise in store. 

Charles can walk again.. and going forward will be a far more active member of the team. The team is complete, Cassandra is beaten, and the future.. is bright. 

Final Thoughts:

This arc is a mixed bag.. it has really good scenes with the first and last issues being the standouts, with the former being an utter classic with an intresting gimick and the latter being a rousing climax with tons of awesome moments, with some good mometns scattered throughout.

But that’s the arc’s issue.. it has good moments and ideas.. but they don’t quite work togehter. The idea of teh Shiar Imperial Guard nearly doing a genocide is good, but the Shiar are such flat characters.. it’s really hard to care. They just don’t have enough connection to the x-men to really have the betryal sting but aren’t callous enough for genocide protocols to maeks sense. It’s a good idea, I still support it being terrifying.. but not enough is done with it and it feels liek Grant is more concerned with throwing weirdos at the x-men than actually saying something. 

The biggest issue however is the art. While inconsitant art is an issue as they’d rotate artists.. but in previous arcs it was usually pretty evenly split but here it’s sloppy: Quitely does the first issue, van Sciver the second.. and the worst of the three Igor Kordey does most of the art. I gave him the beinfit of the doubt last time.. but this time not so much. His art is muddy and tries to be stylized but comes off confusing,ugly and not great. He’s probably a lovely guy but given he’s up against two legendary artists, his lack of style comapred to both shows badly.  And given the arc is alreayd a bit overly complicated, it makes things WORSE by giving us muddled art in a very complex storyline. The flip flopping art makes a fairly intricate story very hard to follow. It’s easily why this arc didn’t grab me in the past and even seeing some better moments, it’s not the series best. It’s not the worst either, Planet X easily takes that ground despite having far better art. It’s an incredibly muddled incredibly long feeling arc and really needed to be compressed by one or two issues but instead is just hard to get through. It’s owrth it for the rest of the runa nd the good moments within but all in all easily one of the weakest points in the series. 

Next Month on New X-Men:The X-Men soak in the new world order, and we meet fantomex, dust and the last surivivors of genosha. 

Next on this blog:Green Eggs and Ham is back!

If you enjoyed this review PLEASE join my patreon. The end of hte month is coming and I need eveyr cent I can get so join at patreon.com/popculturebuffet and i’ll see you at the next rainbow. 

[yllamse]

April is upon us and once again I have taken up the challenge.

Day 01 - Warm up.

So we were encouraged to do whatever we wanted…and I keep speculating on how ocean elves look like.  So, here?  :o  I’m probably really off the proper idea but I’ll keep drawing them this way until the offical stuff comes out.

@aprildrawing

[jpopitunes]

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[kindestegg]

made my own pony with that pony creator from the officla movie site i uhhh look very gay n nb n im glad, it does me justice

[sambart93]

2017.04.20 Satomi Hakkenden Review!

I got a chance to finally see YamaKen (Yamazaki Kento) in this flesh a few weeks back! To be honest, I went into this stage with low expectations, for some reason my brain expects a lot less from TV actors who attempt the stage rather than from actual stage actors... doesn’t make sense right? Anyway lets get to it!

Officla Website here Official Twitter here News/Press Coverage 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8* Video Coverage 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6* Individual Character Interviews

*Unfortunately all the press coverage was focused on YamaKen only so there aren’t really any pics or videos of our boys.

NON-SPOILER REVIEW Overall: This was A LOT better than I was expecting!! I enjoyed this so much! Also it was very highly produced and everyone did an amazing job! I enjoyed the story, absolutely loved the fighting choreography and fighting scenes, the characters were all interesting, the CGI and project mapping was awesome, the stage was very well put together and used, the costumes were gorgeous, ensemble were troupers, basically I underestimated this stage completely and I really, really enjoyed myself! I even liked Wada Masanari’s acting and character which never happens to me! xD

BUT (not related to the play itself) holy moly the audience were so rude! It was clear most were YamaKen fans because they were (I quote them) ‘bored’ and constantly fidgeting or falling asleep whenever he wasn’t on stage and he has like the least amount on stage even though he’s the main actor. (Major rant under the spoiler section, just jump to the ‘LEARN SOME MANNERS’ section if you want to read about it in detail--no spoilers in that section btw)

Rating: 8/10

---

CAST and CHARACTERS

Yamazaki Kento as Inuzuka Shino Aoki Tsunenori as Inuyama Dousetsu Tamaki Yuki as Inukawa Sousuke Wada Masanari as Inutako Bungo Nishime Shun as Inue Shinbei Matsushima Shouta as Inusa Kakeno Arai Atsushi as Inukai Genpachi Maruyama Atsushi as Inumura Daikaku Aono Kaede as Hajime Kuriyama Wataru as Samo Jirou Matsuda Kenji as Chudai Houshi Higa Manami as Tamazusa / Fusehime Shundou Mitsutoshi as Satomi Yoshizane Yaotani Maoto as Fusahachi Kawashima Ririka as Mei Yokoyama Kazutoshi as Okushirou +Ensemble

This cast is HUGE as you can tell xD

PreShow:

I thought it was super strange that we didn’t get any chirashi flyers/leaflets or anketto survey (the amount of Japanese I use now when I speak English is ridiculous, sorry!). Also when I walked in there were cameras everywhere so I was super lucky to once again end up at a show where I could possibly be on the DVD or at least have seen that version! xD 

I had a ticket with a tokuten special extra which ended up being the poster - if ANYONE wants it then it’s your for 800yen xD (not including P&P).

STORY

This stage is based off a fantasy epic that is 106 volumes long and written by Kyokutei Bakin. It’s main plot is about 8 half-brothers who are descendants of dogs (hence why they all have ‘inu’ meaning ‘dog’ in their names) who are brought together through balls of power in order to save a princess and stop an evil power from rising.

Unfortunately, I don’t think any of it has been translated in English.

SPOILERS BELOW

Full Story

The first half of the play is about each of the eight guys unleashing and learning they have this power and then start to find each other, either intentionally or by coincidence. They also learn about a power that has taken YamaKen and TamaChan’s childhood friend and love interest ‘Mei’ who has been resurrected and possessed and turned her bad, so they naturally want to save her.

The second half is when they finally band together and attempt to infiltrate the enemy’s castle and reach the queen before she unleashes a nasty power (I think a dragon) onto the world, as well as save Mei. 

**Major spoiler: Unfortunately they’re all killed and dead by the end of it through the different stages of the caste and the different levels of protection each part/area had except Shino/YamaKen.

Cast and Character Breakdown

About halfway through the play, I started to giggle to myself as I realised just how many of them are Tokusatsu actors! Which casting directing is a Toku fan(?!) and got all these awesome guys together xD Seriously Aoki, Matsushima, Nashime, Kuriyama, Maruyama, Arai, Matsuda freaking Kenji(!), ALL Toku actors!! xD

Yamazaki Kento as Inuzuka Shino

YamaKen’s voice surprised me. I don’t remember it ever being THAT low but when he first started talking, I couldn’t help but giggle because I thought he was putting it on! But as the show continued it became apparent that his voice is just that deep and I do not remember it ever being that deep >.<

YamaKen had a lot less stage time than I was anticipating, especially because he’s the main character and all(!), but at the same time I can understand why he had such little time on stage considering his main forte IS TV and Movies, and he doesn’t have as much stage experience as EVERYONE else on that damn stage xD (well except Nishime, I think this was his first stage outside of the Kamen Rider stage greetings and things.) *researches* Yeah YamaKen has only ever done the first run and then this run of Hakkenden ever, that’s his entire stage experience.

I think he did a very good job though! This is one of the few times of late where he’s really been able to prove he can actually act and not just ‘gets the job because of his face’ kind of thing. I’ve always believed he can act but as of late (as I said) he’s only being hired because he’s popular and because of his looks - come on, he practically mastered the whole Koukou Romance role about 8 movies ago(!)... 

THIS stage right here is the kind of shit I want him to go back to! This is the kind of job I want him to take and shine in! I WANT him to do completely different stuff again like he did 6, 7 years ago! This is where he shines and proves his acting skills and he did great! I felt for his character, I really understood how he character was, he really showed his character’s personality perfectly. Also that outfit was so cool with the massive blood splatter across and everything! THIS IS THE YAMAKEN I REMEMBER AND LOVE! Y’all feel me on this right?! xD

YamaKen slipped during one of the flight scenes but he very smoothly just rolled around and got himself straight back up ^_^

One scene I really enjoyed with YamaKen was when YamaKen and Matsushima met for the first time and Matsushima is in girl’s wear and is singing in a high voice and being all playful -- it was very pretty. In part two they meet again and this time because Matsushima’s in normal boys wear, YamaKen doesn’t realise at first who it is and Matsushima has to act a little for YamaKen to remember. In fact ALL the YamaKen x Matsushima scenes I really enjoyed!

YamaKen’s final scene was really great too! It was of course sad but seeing him trying to hold on to life and fight with everything he had and then all the 8 brothers coming together one last time was so cool! You could feel the pain YamaKen’s character was going through too!

OOOOHHH! And the almost kiss scene too!!! So the evil queen towards the end approaches YamaKen, thinking he’s given up on life and decided to take her side, she gets REAL close to him and almost kisses him and naturally he’s like ‘don’t be so stupid’ and strikes her! Such a sexy but good scene! I could hear YamaKen fans’ hearts break during that possible almost kiss scene but I just thought it was totally juicy xD

Main point: I am happy with his performance and this is what I want from him in the future! Please stop taking ‘only because of your face’ jobs.

Aoki Tsunenori as Inuyama Dousetsu

My first two notes about him are literally: his hair us flawless. AND: Aoki is just flawless whatever. xD 

Do I really need to say anymore? But I shall anyway!

Aoki is just impressive whatever he does and he always so flawlessly (okay three shots) adapts to any role he’s given. It was so easy to believe that his characters are real. His character in this was also very interesting. 

Seeing his character start on the bad side and then slowly turn to the good side because of a misunderstanding and then ends up fighting his father (from my memory, I don’t think he learns til AFTER he’s given the final deadly strike that it’s his father) . And THEN the even bigger twist when his father has been resurrected and being controlled by the evil and therefore in order for everyone to get to the next stage of the castle, he has to fight and kill his father again and seeing his heartbreak this time around! Oh my poor heart....

I really liked his costume too, it was very monk-like, rustic and simple and I’m pretty sure he was barefoot and for the entire play - although I was a little concerned he’d get splinters or something... And that flawlessly beautifully long hair xD

I can’t really explain it well but something about how Aoki performs, it always feels so natural and real and flows very well and it’s like being sprinkled with fairydust. Whatever he does, it’s enchanting but also with the familiarity feel to it. Does anyone understand what I mean?!

Tamaki Yuki as Inukawa Sousuke

TAMACHAN!!! <3 << I think I’m the only one who calls him this xD

I didn’t even need to see him, as soon as he spoke I recognised his voice straight away xD

Let’s get the opening out of the way first: I was a little annoyed and upset when Tamaki’s character was killed within the first 10 minutes or so of the stage! I was like “IS THAT ALL?! IS THAT ALL I’M GETTING OF MY BEAUTIFUL TOKIENTA?!” but luckily he’s resurrected pretty much straight away and given one of those balls of power and such. He got a lot more than just those 10 minutes on stage -- phew!!

Although I DID enjoy that the opening scene was YamaKen and TamaChan fighting. I also really liked the fact they were brothers. Their dynamic was very interesting. The brotherly love and hate between them too was great. I especially loved their last big scene together! It was heartbreaking but also awesome!

Tamaki’s fighting was so good! I really enjoyed seeing him fight and his choreography!

Wada Masanari as Inutako Bungo

Wada Masanari still bores me. I just feel he’s been a bit too typecast and always get/plays the same type of character; unemotional, constant resting bitch face, very serious and focused on one mission and that was this character too. 

HOWEVER, thinking back, one of his scenes does stand out to me still. His character has two younger siblings and unfortunately they get completely slaughtered and seeing Wada play an emotionally broken and heartbroken older brother as he picks up his dead little sister and just cries with his siblings in his arms, it really struck a cord with me, and for the first time I actually saw his character rather than thinking ‘oh look it’s Wada on stage’. It was a very emotional scene and definitely hit the feels. 

I also like that he fought with axes too. Reminded me of Gimli from LOTR xD but we didn’t get to see enough of him being badass unlike the others.

*I apologise to Wada fans if I’ve hurt you with this opinion of him but I can’t help it.

**If you have any recommendations for where Wada’s acting really stands out then I’m open to suggestions and will watch them! ^_^

Nishime Shun as Inue Shinbei

He is TOO adorable!! While Ghost was a trainwreck, I’ve always thought he was adorable and cute and it was great to see him finally shine and show us what he can do (lets not mention Ghost again shall we) and this was his first major work after Ghost too I think - I don’t know how big his roles were in the two doramas he did. 

I really, really loved his character! FIRST(!) his costume is absolutely adorable and beautiful and it was my favourite out of all the costumes. 

He was very playful and one of those characters who only showed up when it was completely necessary so he was playing a much mature character than (possibly) himself.

As previously mentioned, his role is small BUT I think it left a HUGE impression on everyone including myself.

I have a note that says: his entrance was so cool and so good! It was towards the end of part one when YamaKen and co were surrounded and being beaten and Nishime just jumps in to save them all ^_^ He was being so smug that he could fight everyone so easily.

But his death was heartbreaking! He got slashed to crap and was just constantly saying ‘痛くないよ・It doesn’t even hurt. It doesn’t hurt.’ and then he dies.... our poor baby! =‘[

Matsushima Shouta as Inusa Kakeno

I really liked his entrance! His entrance was him coming out of the right side doors in girls clothing and did this beautiful dance while singing in a very high voice, that strangely worked and his voice did not break. It sounded and looked really good, but also kinda laughable because of how well he pulled it all off! I am all for seeing Matsushima like this! He always does unique characters, just like his character in Drive xD Then his character, in the same scene, proceeds to steal YamaKen’s sword and then hides in the shadows with it as YamaKen is left in a situation where he might need to fight.

But then in part two he’s in normal warrior wear (which confuses YamaKen’s character xD) and turns out he’s this badass archery militant guy!

Unfortunately he too didn’t get nearly as much stage time as he deserved. On top of that, he was the ONLY one who had an off stage battle which really annoyed me! We see him on stage going ‘okay I’ll hold the entrance with my archers’ and then the next scene he’s in, he comes on stage covered in arrows and dies... we saw EVERYONE else’s last battle and death but we didn’t see his and that annoyed me somewhat.

Matsushima’s character is a very playful character and has this slightly dark streak to him, it’s a good character. They’re ALL good characters okay! xD

Arai Atsushi as Inukai Genpachi

Arai fans are going to hate me. He just doesn’t enter my conscious line of sight ever! I’ve seen him on stage at least three times (Yuhiden, Judo Shounen and this) and each time, I can’t even tell you what he did or who he was. I just don’t get or notice any presence from him at all. He’s just forgettable for me. 

BUT I do remember he has a scene with Wada’s little sister who puts a flower in his hair and he keeps it in the entire time; that’s a cute moment. I’d say his character is pretty much the same as his Yuhiden character but don’t take my word on that. But other than that, I do not remember him in this. Sorry Arai fans!

Maruyama Atsushi as Inumura Daikaku

We got ourselves an Okita Souj here: he coughs up blood for most of the show and is a very weak guy because of his illness and because he’s dying. BUT he’s totally sweet as he spends his time tending to the sick and looking after them <3 Maruyama keeps getting these types of role recently. Sorry that’s all I have to say about him....

Aono Kaede as Hajime

She was great! I loved how she first played this cute innocent girl and then as soon as she’s resurrected and taken to the dark side (haha SW reference) she gets badass and sexy. Even in one scene, she strips while talking to YamaKen as she reveals to him that she’s not the Hajime he knows anymore. Also she has an onstage kiss with Higa Manami in the beginning, which is how Higa’s character possess and takes control of her, to which I was like ‘OH YEAH!’ - my brain is a pervy weird thing okay. 

I LOVED her outfit in part two! It was sexy and like black leather and she did a great time with the fighting scenes. Although her choreography was a LOT slower compared to the boys; it might’ve been the actress’ own lack of stamina and strength, but it was noticeable how much of a slower pace her fight scenes were BUT I still enjoyed them. She fought like a badass xD

I understand that some people might be annoyed and think ‘oh this is sexism! and misogyny, and of course they make the girl strip and act sexy and wear scanty clothing’ etc. BUT I personally do not mind it at all - boys or girls - and I enjoyed it okay. As long as they’re a badass and a good character which she definitely was! BUT I understand why some people might see this negatively.

Kuriyama Wataru as Samo Jirou

Kuriyama, just like Aoki, had hair that was absolutely fabulous! It was so fluffy and nice(!) and long too! They both suited it, although it didn’t look much different to what Aoki usually has xD it was especially fabulous when they fought and it swished around and everything xD

Kuriyama was part of the bad guy side (and so was Aoki originally) so you saw him pop up in random places trying to fight the other guys. I feel it was a safe character for him to play; there was nothing majorly challenging for him I don’t think... it was a simple enough character for him to do and he did it while looking fabulous!

Unfortunately I do not remember what happened to him in the end but he too died xD I think he was ontop of a rock and him and his rival (Aoki?) killed each other at the same time. But don’t take my word for that.

Matsuda Kenji as Chudai Houshi

I did not realise until AFTER the play that it was Matsuda freaking Kenji on stage! No wonder he looked so familiar! And no wonder I enjoyed his performance! He’s a freaking badass in ALL the Toku’s he does, and I always love his characters! I wish I’d realised and known before I watched this because then I would’ve been more pumped about him and his character and would’ve spent more time on him. BUT having said that I really enjoyed his character anyway! I love how he comes in and seems mysterious and helps guide all the boys and explains what happened in the past and then to be confronted by his son and to fight his son to the death. And THEN for him to be resurrected and possessed and turned evil,!! That really broke our hearts to see Aoki having to fight his father again =[ and the way Aoki laid his father to rest the first time around too! <3 So even without knowing who it was at the time, I still ended up enjoying his performance and character which shows he’s a damn fine actor -- they all are!! xD

Higa Manami as Tamazusa / Fusehime

I don’t have much to say but I really enjoyed her performance as she got more dragon-like and more deranged and more cracked and less human. Also, she looked fabulous. All her evilness was great! I especially love that final scene with her and YamaKen <3 when she was so close to kissing him and bringing him to the dark side but BAM he’s like ‘you think I’m that stupid?’ and attacks! It’s so good! I loved her entrance too where she’s brought in by humans carrying her on a palanquin; I was super impressed that they had no problems or accidents as they carried her on stage, lower her, relifted it up with her on and carried her off stage xD

Yaotani Maoto as Fusahachi and Kawashima Ririka as Mei

These two had a short time on stage but they were adorable! They played two roles! They technically open and close the entire stage as young YamaKen/Shino and Aono/Hajime planting a tree <3 They also play Wada’s younger siblings. They did a great job in the short time they had ^_^

The Ensemble were great and there were a lot of them and they had a lot of work to do. They were also good at covering the flaws and such of the others, or picking up items or clothing that accidentally came out and stuff xD 

And I think I’ve finally finished me segment on the actors! Phew! That only took like 4 days >.<

AESTHETICS

For some reason in my notes here, I have: These seats = NOT comfortable. But I don’t remember this at all >.< oh well! But apparently Bunkyo Shibik Hall does not have comfortable chairs xD so there’s your future reference! ^_^

The stage was amazing. They had these huge lumps of set pieces that so smoothly moved around the stage and everything and they looked very well built and were impressive! Especially when ensemble would move the set pieces around AS the actors fought ontop of them! That was super cool ^_^

The lighting and project mapping was really cool too! I like how they had this little cardboard circle that would come down and they’d use PM on that to show the power balls and the dragons eye and such! Also towards the end when the dragon’s egg was cracking open and they used the stairs to show the cracking which was awesome!

The fighting and choreography...need I saw more about this? It was so amazing and I enjoyed all the fight scenes and everyone was badass and did a great job! It’s detailed more below but due to the audience being so rude, I couldn’t get completely into it which is a shame because I wanted to be completely into the fighting and the sad scenes. But seriously, they were all fighting in such a badass way and the choreography is amazing!

LEARN SOME MANNERS

And now for me to get my rant out...

Seriously the audience! They were the rudest I’ve ever experienced! It was clear that 80-90% of the crowd were YamaKen fans because that’s all they had him as their phone wallpapers xD BUT you could also tell most probably had never been to the theatre before, nor were part of the ‘Katana Girl’ group (which is where the problem mainly comes from) because holy moly they were rude as hell(!) YamaKen seriously has the shortest amount of time on stage even though he’s the main character and whenever he wasn’t on stage, pretty much everyone around me was either fidgetting or fall sleeping or being like ‘this is boring’ -_- it was a freaking amazing play if you actually went for the whole cast and the story and everything(!!!) ugh they seriously made me angry. One girl was completely out of it by about 30minutes into the first half, during the intermission she went and never came back...I kinda wish the rest of them had done that. Ugh seriously, I’ve never been surrounded by such a poorly behaved audience in my life and it made me feel bad for the other actors. So I made sure I clapped EXTRA high and hard for everyone EXCEPT YamaKen. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love YamaKen, I’ve been following that boys career since he was 16 years old but now he’s too mainstream in that the (Japanese) fans are so ridiculous now that I just don’t want to support him. Can we go back to YamaKen when he had more free range to do none mainstream stuff like hackers and hikikomoris?! *cries* 

Seeing him get and do THIS role was a godsend because it was finally something different and something that I feel suits him much more than what he’s done recently, but he’s so over-popularised and over-saturated right now that I can’t watch most of his recent stuff because it’s ALL the same. And the damn fans too these days... anyway...

I saw one girl with a KuroMyu bag which meant that she was a Tamaki fan and that made me happy BUT made me realise that we stage actor fans were the ridiculous minority, which shouldn’t be happening when you have actors like TamaChan, Aoki and Wada on the same effing stage! I felt SO bad for the other actors thanks to 90% of the audience being complete dicks. I mean it was expected and I did expect some YamaKen bias ridiculousness but I definitely wasn’t expecting the audience attitude to be that rude and inconsiderate.

Another friend of mine also went to this stage (for Wada) and without me even mentioning my opinion or anything, she ALSO mentioned how rude the audience was and how YamaKen bias it was, and that she also heard people go ‘oh this is so boring’, like seriously which play were you watching?!?!?! because it was VERY good!!! e and my friend loved it! But then again we always go to the theatre and we also watch these kind of things.

Unfortunately due to the poorly mannered audience, I couldn’t get completely into the stage, and I so desperately wanted to cry during the second half of the play because it’s just heartbreak everywhere! However, due to all those distractions, I just couldn’t. =[ I’ll wait until the DVD to cry my heart out properly to these actors and characters.

Ugh...rage and rant over.

GOODS

The pamphlet pics are super nice! But I found it strange that they weren’t doing bromide sets. I would’ve liked pretty much bromide sets of everyone, BUT then again it would’ve meant I spent more money which is probably for the best that they didn’t have any xD but yes it was strange for them not to have bromides but I guess the production is above that of 2.5 even though they hired Tokusatsu actors galore xD

---

And that is my long-ass review! I cannot believe I’ve spent a good week writing this.... but it’s finally done! now I’m one less review down! Hopefully the others will come out quicker xD

Hope you enjoyed!! ^_^

[optimisticprincepainter]

The East Coast Railways (ECoR) has created a Heritage Park in front of Divisional Railway Manager (DRM)’s office in Sambalpur to showcase an old steam locomotive. The Heritage train engine has also been decorated with LED lights to beautify the Heritage Park and will be allowed for public to take selfies with it. The steam locomotive no-679 has been retrieved from the junkyard of Bankura railway station of Adra division under the South Eastern Railway and placed in front of the DRM office in the western Odisha town on December 31, 1999, after giving a new and beautiful look to the engine. This engine was used in mail and express trains in the then Bengal-Nagpur Railway Company. It was built by the North British Locomotive Co. Ltd, Glasgow (Scotland) in the year 1908 in the name of NG Steam locomotive No-679 having its wheel configuration 4-6-2 with Class CC. “Now the garden will be opened to the general public and they can take selfies with the engine in the Heritage Garden,” said an ECoR spokesperson. The Railways will keep some old things at the Heritage Park to make people aware about the good old days of the national carrier, he added. The ECoR officlas informed that special arrangement will be made for school and college students to visit the DRM office and take selfies with the locomotive engine. Indian Railways with 164 years of rich history; presents a wide spectrum of both tangible and intangible heritage. Indian Railways is proud owner of four UNESCO accorded World Heritage Sites namely Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (1999), Nilgiri Mountain Railway (2005), Kalka Shimla Railway (2008) and Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Mumbai (2004). The Odisha Sun Times Bureau : 12th. Mar,18

EAST COAST RAILWAYS CREATED A HERITAGE PARK IN FRONT OF DRM’s OFFICE IN SAMBALPUR TO SHOWCASE AN OLD STEAM LOCOMOTIVE : The East Coast Railways (ECoR) has created a Heritage Park in front of Divisional Railway Manager (DRM)’s office in Sambalpur to showcase an old steam locomotive.

[witchesoz]

Oz Lore: The Great and Powerful (2)

II) The Land of Oz

Now, what is truly fascinating is that for the release of the movie, Disney published an official map of Oz as it appears in the movie – in fact it is the same map that appears several times in the movie.

However before that, let’s tackle the biggest issue with this movie: is Oz a dream or not?

The movie tries to mix together two conflict canon, the books where Oz is real, and the MGM movie where Oz is a dreamland. As a result… on one side Oz is visibly real, since the Wizard is not knocked on the head in any way, is rather carried there by a magical tornado, and later appears in Dorothy’s story. But on the other side, Dorothy’s story per the MGM movie was a dream, and the Wizard, just like Dorothy, sees in Oz beings and creatures reflecting his reality – the lions, the monkeys, the circus music in the plants, Glinda being a reflection of Wanda, the Little China Girl being the wheelchair girl… too many coincidences for it not to mean something. The result is extremely confusing. But that’s the main trouble with this movie: in terms of Ozian lore, it is infuriating by its desire to take from both canons without fully indulging in any.

Now, to get on to Oz itself…

They kept the idea of Oz being split into several distinct sections, which is nice. The Emerald City is at the center of Oz and has its own, green-colored region. The official map mentions a “Green Lake” nearby, which is not appearing in the movie but is actually a nod to the mysterious lake Baum added on his Oz maps without ever using it in a story. The most interesting twist is that in this version, there are actually four yellow brick roads, each linking the City to a different part of Oz.

In the north, you have the purple-colored Gillikin Country, which appears on the officla map, but is absolutely forgotten in the movie. It is never mentioned, does not appear and doesn’t play any role – the official map doesn’t even has landmarks for it. Since Glinda in this movie is the witch of the South, there is no witchy presence in the North – and even more, on the official map, the Northern Yellow Brick Road is the only one that is not tied or crosses over with the other Yellow roads (ALL the other Yellow Brick Roads are tied together in one big system).

In the South, you have the Quadling Country. It seems to be red-colored, in theory. You see, the thing is that on the official map the colors of the countries are very pale – and the one of the South is so pale it doesn’t seem like it has any color at all. It looks to be the same beige as the paper of the map, until you look really close and note some faded red/pink colors on the borders. The only real noticeable landmark is “Glinda’s Castle”, which is the small bubble-protected kingdom Glinda built in the South during her exile. Because yes, she visibly had enough time to build there a castle – unless it was always there and she merely took over. In the movie, this is where Glinda united her “forces” by gathering people who were oppressed/wronged by the Wicked Witch and knew the truth. Three groups are here: the Quadlings (the simple, rural folks living in the South. Look like humans with strange mustaches/hairdos/outfits – mostly farmers, though others also have jobs such as iron-smiths, sewers, bakers or scarecrow-makers) ; the Tinkerers (old, bearded and bald men with pointy ears, most walking with canes or in wheelchairs, and who are able to build anything – probably a mix of elves makers and the Winkies from the novel) and the Munchkins (who are just like in the MGM movie – interestingly not all the Munchkins joined Glinda’s side, one actually works as the Herald of the Emerald City, but ultimately turns out to be a double agent for Glinda – but it leads the question, if Evanora can spy in Glinda’s protected kingdom, how come she did not realize her own city herald was a spy?).

At one point we also see a bunch of wild mountains located at the border between the South and… the Munchkin realm, let’s call that. The mountains there are shaped like giant animals (one is a stone lion, another a titanic elephant) and they have on them strange sights such as flowers made of crystals/gems.

And then… the East and the West. Oh boy. That’s the mess.

You see, they inverted the East and the West. Which isn’t wrong in itself, because this is a nod to the real Oz maps: the first Oz maps in the books had confused the directions, putting East on the left and West on the right, resulting in an ongoing debate over whether the directions are inverted in Oz or not. HOWEVER… the mistake the movie And this precise map made is that they did not invert the directions on the map, East is still on the right as in our world’s maps. No, they inverted the directions when it comes to the people. The Winkies are put in the East and the Munchkins in the West. Which doesn’t make any sense since for example Evanora goes to rule over the Munchkins and become the Wicked Witch of the East… in the West, according to the official map (which is the same map used in the movie).

Anyway.

The Yellow Land of the Winkies (normally in the West, but on the map and the movie in the East) is actually where the Wizard begins his journey. His balloon falls in “The Winkie Peaks”, in the North-East, right next to Ugabu (another book nod). The Winkie Peaks is a set of twisted canyons and weird mountains – they are covered in snow in their highest and most northern parts, which then melt into waterfalls, rivers and lakes. This area is filled with strange sights: butterfly looking like flowers ; giants plants ; reeds making music ; and “water fairies”, small mischievous sprites who love to bite people. This is also where the Wizard meets Theodora – and this actually is never explained. Why is she so far away from Oz? And why is she in an area FILLED WITH WATER?

They then go into what the map calls the “Enchanted Forest”, which looks mostly like a regular forest. Except that it is filled with lions. This is also where they meet Finley, a small winged monkey with a bellhop outfit, who just escaped after his master’s house was destroyed by the Wicked Witch winged baboons. Here is something else that never got explained: what exactly is Finley? He looks a lot like the winged monkeys the Wicked Witch uses in the MGM movie. But in this continuity, the Wicked Witches use flying baboons. And while Finley has similarities to them (a winged ape with human clothes), he also doesn’t look like them AT ALL – he can speak where they cannot, he is gentle and kind where they are brutal and cruel, and he has feathered wings where they have bat wings.

Finally, in the movie they leave the Winkie Country by using the Yellow Brick Road, which leads them through a patch of blue flowers. And here is actually another interesting confusion: in the movie, it is implied that each gate of Oz has in front of it a patch of flowers tied to the land it faces. The eastern gate has blue flowers; the western gate has yellow flowers, and the southern gate has red flowers – the deadly poppies. Which would make sense… if they hadn’t switched the two countries. So, while the blue flowers face the East, according to the map they face the yellow Winkie Country. Same with the yellow flowers in front of the blue Munchkin Country. In fact, it seems that in the movie the East with the Peaks and the Enchanted Forest, was supposed to be the Munchkin Land of the MGM movie – after all the Enchanted Forest is the one of the MGM movie where they meet the Lion, the Tin Man and the talking apple trees. But the official map put them in the Winkie section.

And the deadly poppy fields are even more confusing – while they are supposed to face South, because they are red and are not near the Eastern Yellow Brick Road, the movie and the map explain that the field is actually East, and borders the Enchanted Forest. It is also confusing because in the MGM movie it is implied that the poppy field is a spell cast by the Wicked Witch, but here they are an already existing area everyone in Oz avoids because “one sniff” of the flowers and you fall into an eternal sleep.

As for the Winkies themselves, just like in the MGM movie they are represented as tall soldiers with hooked noses and chins – they are the personal guards of the Wicked Witches. However, contrary to the MGM movie, they do not have green skin, they rather have yellow skins (a nod to how their color is yellow).

And then you have the Eastern – I mean, Western part of Oz, the blue-colored Munchkin country. Only three areas are visited here: the China Country, a nod to the book, a city made of giant china cups and teapots, inhabited by living china figures. The town got entirely destroyed by the flying baboons, because they celebrated the arrival of the Wizard which angered the Wicked Witch, leading to the genocide of the China people, with only the Little China girl surviving (in this canon, glue does not exist in Oz, and thus the China people, once broken, cannot be repaired – until the Wizard arrived, with glue). Later another area of the Munchkin Country is the “Dark Forest” also called the “Haunted Forest”. Where the Enchanted Forest was a green, vibrant, beautiful area, the Haunted Forest is a dark and gloomy place filled with black dead trees, enormous thorns, and also man-eating plants with glowing eyes. In fact, to travel safely there you either have to run very fast, or be a witch whose magic can force the plants and obstacles to push away (such as Glinda does with her wand). The Haunted Forest borders “The Cemetery”, where Glinda’s father was buried. And according to the map, it is basically the only cemetery of all Oz, where the Ozites are all buried.

As you might remember, the haunted forest was originally (MGM canon) in the West of Oz, near the Wicked Witch castle. And here it is in the Munchkin Country, except that the Munchkin is in the West… the same way the Enchanted Forest, in the East-Munchkin land of MGM becomes here part of the East-Winkie land. It is just… so confusing.

This little tour being made, here are a few additional thoughts about this take on Oz:

# The technological level of Oz is… extremely confusing. The Quadlings are shown to own sewing machines, for example, hinting at a somewhat modern Oz. Yet, the Ozites are also confused by things such as glue and music boxes, and ignore what canon powder is.

# The size of Oz is… also confusing, but overall damn is this country small! On one side it takes roughly a full day (one afternoon and one morning) for the Wizard and Theodora to go from the Winkie Peaks, at the Ozian border, to the Emerald City, at the heart of Oz. Yet, the Wizard tells the China Girl her city is “one or two hours” of walk from the Emerald City. Except that, according to the map, the distance China Town-Emerald City is half the length of the distance Theodora and the Wizard crossed to get to the Emerald City…