Who the F*** is That?!?!- X-Men: Apocalypse (Part 1 of 3)

“Call me Ivan Ooze again   motherfucker, I dare you.”

Now that my first semester of university is way in the rearview mirror and the bulk of the holiday season is behind us (Unless you celebrate Kwanzaa, I suppose), it’s time to get back in the practice of not being an unproductive scumbag. I figured that it’s past time to do a WTF?!?! for X-Men: Apocalypse, given that the trailer dropped a few weeks ago.

As well as this series, I should have a couple overdue movie reviews coming out soon, as well as a list of my most anticipated movies of 2016, as well as a round-up of some of the movies I watched this year that I didn’t get around to reviewing.

For those of you wondering about my DeathMatch series (All none of you), I, uh, well I’ll get into it later, but for now, I’ll say that I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Anyways, with regards to this edition of WTF?!?!, you’ll notice that a lot of these characters have appeared in major movies before, but I felt that their origins weren’t touched on much, for various reasons, so in addition to the new characters, some familiar faces will be profiled as well.

Anyways, on with the damn show!

Warren Worthington III/ Angel/ Archangel

Well, he’s much prettier than “actual” angels, that’s for sure.

First Appearance: As Angel/Warren: X-Men #1 (September 1963); As Archangel: X-Factor #23 (December 1987)

Created by: Stan Lee, Jack Kirby

Portrayed by: Ben Hardy (EastEnders)

Other portrayals: Stephen Ouimette (X-Men: The Animated Series) William Callaway (Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends) Mark Hildreth (X-Men: Evolution) Liam O’Brien (Wolverine and the X-Men) Ben Foster (X-Men: The Last Stand) Dave Wittenberg (X-Men Legacy II: Rise of Apocalypse) Will Friedle (Lego Marvel Super Heroes)

Warren Worthington III was born into quite a bit of comfort, being the son of millionaire parents, Warren Jr. and Kathryn, but he was also born with one of the less subtle mutant powers:

Impeccable abs and an unmistakable hairstyle?

What his parents had thought to be fucked-up shoulder blades were actually a pair of goddamned wings. Taking up the identity of the Avenging Angel, Warren became a masked crime fighter, catching the attention of Professor Charles Xavier, who took him in as his student and as a member of  his teenage mutant superhero team, the X-Men.

Who, throughout the 60’s, were garbed in literally the worst costumes ever.

During his time with the X-Men, Warren’s parents were targeted for death by Warren’s own Uncle Burtram, a sleazy diamond smuggler who cemented his reputation for douchebaggery by murdering Warren Jr. to keep him from ratting to the authorities. Angel and the X-Men were able to defeat Burtram (who called himself the “Dazzler”), but not before Burtram murdered Kathryn too. At this point, Warren’s personality had begun evolving from “self-centered rich kid” to kind of a darker place.

After some years spent in college, running his family company, and a stint with the Defenders, Warren played an important part in founding  X-Factor: A team of mutants that posed as mutant hunters, but who were actually the original X-men (Angel, Cyclops, Iceman, Marvel Girl and Beast) training young mutants to control their powers.

Much like how the real-life X-Factor  teaches singers everywhere how they too, can be forgotten the minute they win an award on television.

Unfortunately for this well-intentioned venture, Warren decided to appoint his childhood friend Cameron Hodge to act as the team’s PR advisor. Unbeknownst to Warren, Hodge was actually a pretty intense anti-mutant bigot who was hellbent on sabotaging X-Factor.It didn’t help that Mystique happened to leak to a reporter that X-Factor’s main benefactor was a mutant.

When fighting a group of mutant assassins known as the marauders, Warren’s wings were pinned to a wall by Harpoon, as disturbingly witnessed here:

“Ye sure do have a purdy mouth!”

While he was rescued, Hodge manipulated subsequent events so that Warren’s wings were surgically amputated under the pretext of carrying a contagious infection. To add insult to injury, fucking Hodge straight-up murdered Warren, sabotaging his private jet and seemingly blowing him to smithereens.

Warren didn’t die though. Why? Because comics are fucking bullshit, that’s why.

See, Warren had actually been teleported away by Apocalypse (Who we’ll get to later), who brainwashed him and warped his body and mind in order to induce total servitude and recruit him into his Four Horsemen (Again, we’ll get to it later). Tinting his skin blue and gifting him some badass bio-metallic wings, Apocalypse turned Angel into his Horseman of Death.

Daaaaaamn.

Death led the Four Horsemen into battle against X-Factor, but he quickly reverted back to the side of the Angels (Heh) after he mistakenly believed to have killed his friend Bobby Drake (Iceman). Warren, or as he was now known, Archangel, was a good guy again, but at the cost of some of his mental stability, as evidenced by his decapitation of Cameron Hodge after the latter killed his girlfriend.

JESUS H. FUCK!!!

Since then, Warren has periodically struggled between being the heroic Angel, and the slightly murderous Archangel. He alternated physically and mentally between the two forms until he eventually  started becoming essentially a new version of Apocalypse. After Psylocke ended the crisis by stabbing him in the stomach, Archangel and Warren were destroyed. However, Warren was reborn into his regular, non-cerulean body (Although he kept his metal wings), and proceeded to play little to no part in recent story arcs. Kind of shitty, but that’s classic Marvel, I suppose.

Where’s my Jessica Jones comic, you fucking hacks!?!?!?

Jubilation Lee/Jubilee

Why yes, this movie does take place in the 80’s. Why do you ask?

First appearance: Uncanny X-Men #244 (May 1989)

Created by: Chris Claremont and Marc Silvestri

Portrayed by: Lana Condor

Other portrayals: Alyson Court (X-Men: The Animated Series, Marvel vs. Capcom, Spider-Man: The Animated Series) Heather McComb (Generation X) Chiara Zanni (X-Men: Evolution) Katrina Florence (X-Men) Kea Wong (X2: X-Men United, X-Men: The Last Stand) Danica McKellar (X-Men: Legacy)

Oh, Jesus, here we go.

Jubilee (Who you may remember as being your least favourite character from the X-Men cartoon) was born the daughter of a couple of wealthy Chinese immigrants. A talented gymnast and noted mallrat, Jubilee lived a charmed existence in Beverly Hills until tragedy struck, as it inevitably must with all X-Men. If I didn’t know better, I would say that Professor X is behind all those unfortunate events.

Although I suppose it would be easier to recruit teenagers to be child soldiers in a Mutants’ Rights paramilitary group if their parents are already dead… 

In the space of one weekend, her parents lost all their money at the stock market, and were mistaken for their neighbours (Also (Sort of like named the Lees) by a pair of hitmen. Because if there’s one thing we can all agree upon, it’s that it’s completely understandable to assume that in a city where over 3000 people are of Asian descent, only one family has “Lee” for a last name.

Jubilee was sent to an orphanage, but ran away, hiding in a shopping mall and stealing food to survive. It was there that she discovered her mutant power: generating bright bursts of energy from her fingertips (Kinda like fireworks), which could be used as flash bombs or detonators, even potentially causing strokes in other people by causing a precision burst in their brain.

In order to kick out the snarky, rebellious teenage mutant, mall security hired mutant hunters to catch her. While she held her own, she needed to be rescued by Storm, Rogue, Psylocke and Dazzler, who happened to be shopping at the same mall. Fascinated by the female X-Men, she followed them back to their base and hid out there for a while, unbeknownst to the X-Men themselves. One would think that a group of people that frequently employs some of the most powerful telepaths on the planet could locate a teenager with a fondness for bright pink and yellow clothing, but there you go (She did apparently have an immunity to telepathy, but that was later retconned).

Jubilee stayed in hiding until she saved Wolverine’s life when the Reavers (cyborg assassins) invaded the X-Base. Wolverine and Jubilee became fast friends, with the latter taking on a sidekick role and accompanying Wolverine on his adventures.

Joining the X-Men eventually, Jubilee was also a member of both Generation X (Young X-Men, essentially) and X-Corps (Not important) until those teams disbanded and was a fairly prominent character in the X comics until M-Day. I won’t go into details, but essentially, at the end of M-Day, Jubilee, as well as 90% of the world’s mutant population, lost hr mutation, leaving her powerless.

Trying to keep fighting the good fight, Jubilee donned a super-powered suit joined the New Warriors as Wondra until that team split (superhero teams don’t exactly have a long lifespan). Then, she kinda didn’t do anything.

Then, she got infected by a bio-weapon detonated by a vampire suicide bomber and became a vampire.

Why no, I didn’t think I’d ever write that sentence in my life. Why do you ask?

So yeah, she’s a vampire now. Still a good guy, but also  vampire.

Man, comic books are fucking idiotic.

To be continued…