If we’re friends on Facebook, you may have seen a handful of posts about the tragedy that is the upcoming X-Men movie. I know nerdy types like to complain about movies that represent their childhood and, for the most part, I’ve managed to avoid doing so. This one, however, contains a character that is my all-time favorite and one I’ve been waiting to come to the movies since… well… I was a boy and my friends and I thought it would be amazing to have a cartoon X-Men movie… because we didn’t believe live action was possible. This one’s a bummer because the Marvel Universe of movies has done some pretty great things and some not so great things, but the dread I felt about them putting Apocalypse in a movie could not have come more true.
So why does a 38 year old man, who has better things to do, care so much? To me, Apocalypse is the epitome of my childhood. I’m gonna get a bit deep on you to tell you why. Back then, I was an overweight kid… who wasn’t coping with his parents’ divorce that well… and who spent gym class trying, unsuccessfully, to avoid getting his ass kicked. I hated the world. Then, along came a character who knew so much about humankind’s real nature that he wanted to end it all. Apocalypse wasn’t evil, he was knowledgeable. For better or worse, I identified with him and became subsequently fascinated by the idea that what he knew could be so massive as to warrant destruction. I outgrew that part of my life, but not before some version of his name became my online presence. Back before Facebook, I was most often known on web forums, etc. as Apocalypse or Apoc. To this day, my Xbox Live gamertag is Apoc24 and people call me Apoc in-game. Yeah, nerd stuff.
In the physical world, I have a small bust of the character but never anything remarkable. I’ve never really looked, but always wanted something. Imagine my delight when I saw a 1/6 scale statue of him in Prague a few months ago. I debated that purchase for 45 minutes, but would have no way to get it back on a plane and the shop tenders didn’t understand me when I asked if they could ship it. I was bummed, but it was what had to be. One decent Ebay deal to the rescue! This thing is currently in storage, but one day it will get displayed. In the meantime, I’ll have to hope the movie can hold me off. The truth is I’ve avoided really thinking about the upcoming movie. When I realized how far off his physical appearance was, I knew I needed to not form an opinion and go in totally open minded. I’m not greedy – all I ask is that it be decent and not corny.