*I would like to personally take this opportunity to say that I liked the first episode and am starting the second as I type this. That being said, this is still a big problem to me.*
Multiple Man, Cannonball, Pixie, Sunspot, Chamber, Strong Guy, Husk, Danielle Moonstar.
I just named eight random Mutants from X-Force, X-Factor, Generation X and New Mutants. These are eight characters that myself and many other X-Men fans love but these are lesser known characters so let’s try this :
Gambit, Rogue, Colossus, Bishop, Iceman.
There I named five that more people would know and even though all of those five except for Gambit were featured in Days Of Future Past just 3 years ago but even so, none of them have had an extended part in the franchise. So why am I naming off multiple characters of The X-Men? Because of this guy :
Take a minute and think about who Eclipse is. Got nothing? Well that’s because he’s not from the comics at all. So once again, look at all of those names of characters that we either haven’t seen or haven’t seen properly and then think about the fact that they created a character for this show.
“But Vance, what about Phil Coulson? Or any of the other Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. characters?”
Well, I’d let you have that one except for the fact that one is a shadowy organization that has hundreds of nameless people in suits and the other one is the X-Men which is easily the largest commodity that Marvel had until the Avengers films. I’ve seen every X-Men film and have seen hundreds of Mutants brought to life in those films but most of them were done in very quick scenes that had no merit.(Much like most of the Fox Marvel films themselves.) When we really start to think about it there’s only been a handful of X-Men that have been handled adequately : Wolverine, Charles Xavier, Mystique and Magneto. All of the others have either been side characters without any kind of leading ability, killed off too quickly to enjoy or have been so far off base from their comic book character that you barely know it’s them.(Looking at you Apocalypse, Gambit, Nightcrawler, Storm and Colossus.)
This is my biggest issue with Fox, they have the world but they don’t know what to do with it. Of the 13 people I named earlier all but 4 of them have been featured in films or are currently scheduled to be but they’re hardly noticeable when they’re there. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt though. You’re creating a show about a family with two mutant children who are on the run from the government. Alright, by all rights let’s make it a new family, new characters,(Yes, I know that they might turn out to be Fenris but as of right now they’re new) new storyline. Fine by me. Mutant Resistance Fighters? Alright, I bet I’ll know these guys and I can look up the rest…Ok, so Blink, Polaris, Thunderbird and..oh the caption told me that Sage is in that headquarters when Blink introduces herself so that’s cool…but who’s that guy? Oh I bet it’s Sunspot. Nope. It’s Eclipse.
I struggle with this when Multiple Man, Rogue or Gambit would’ve been much better choices for the series and because I know that they’ll be overshadowed in any film that they’re featured in.
The Gifted does do well as a show but it still remains to be seen on how it’s going to handle it’s source material.
