"I have been at the mercy of those who claimed to be following orders. Never again."Those words changed the whole X-men dynamic for me. It brought to light a previously overlooked truth to the X-men mythos: Magneto has a very convincing point-of-view.
I grew up collecting X-men comics. I loved the characters, the melodrama, the angst and betrayel, the epic story arcs, and the little character moments that punctuated the series. X-men, X-factor, X-force, and all the other interconnected sagas now gather dust in some forgotten box in the garage. Maybe I should go dig those up.
I remember watching the X-men cartoon as a kid, and being blown away. This was the first time I was introduced to something that wasn't "canon", but still managed to be true to the spirit of a series. The cartoon strayed quite a bit from the books, but was still well executed, and most importantly, entertaining. When the movies were announced I bounced with cheerful glee. Finally, my X-men were going to be realized on the big screen!
The first X-men flick was great, yet marred by a low budget. Comic book movies usually failed miserably at the box office, so the producers got pretty stingy when it came to writing checks. But Bryan Singer did something great: he made an X-men movie that also happened to be a good movie. The reason? The low budget forced Singer to concentrate on the characters. Remember when Rogue asked Wolverine if it hurt when his claws came out? Remember his answer? He looks down at his hand holding the steering wheel, you can tell that he desperately wants to avoid answering, yet the truth must come out: "Every time" he says. In those brief seconds we get to know Wolverine the character, know that he is more than just Hugh Jackman with a nice set of CGI claws. That, in my opinion, is the second best character moment in the entire series. The best moment happens in First Class with the quote above.
