I’ve seen the second X-Men movie twice now. I have been holding off on commenting for a reason I really couldn’t identify. But after going through some of my old comics I realized what it was. It was a certain deja vu I felt seeing the movie. I guess it shouldn’t come to anyones surprise that the new X-Men movie is not an original idea. God Loves, Man Kills (pictured below) was Marvel Graphic Novel number 5.

It was published back in 1982 and it and the X2 movie share the same basic plot and characters. William Stryker, his plot against the mutants, making his own Cerebro, Magneto and the X-Men teaming up is all there.

The story is just broken down to it’s simplest form. Simplified for the non X-Men fans. But it’s pretty much the same. Except it’s not. It’s really a watered down version of a groundbreaking comic story.

Let’s take Stryker for example. The movie Stryker hatred for muties is fueled by the fact he had a son that was a mutant. Yeah that’s pretty good motivation. Throw in the bit about how he sent the kid to Xavier’s mutant school adds to the movie Strykers dislike of mutants.

But in the comic the character of Stryker is so much more. This Stryker also had a child that was a mutant. But his reaction to the child was that it was a monster and the comic Stryker killed his child. But that wasn’t enough. The comic Stryker also kills his wife because he had decided it was her fault for bringing the monster into this world.

Now you have a good start for the comic Stryker going here. But it gets better. The comic Stryker finds religion and truly believes that all mutants are the spawns of satan. So the comic Stryker sets up a church to start a crusade against the worlds mutants.

All of the religious ideas are stripped from the movie. And it hurts the movie Strykers character. The movie Stryker is a hollow movie badguy and nothing more. It’s a shame in a way because the comic Stryker was just a guy doing what he believed was right. Sure he was a madman but it worked better.

The rest of it was pretty much the same. But it’s all mixed together with other X-Men stories. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the second X-Men movie. You can’t take a comic book story and translate it into a movie. Some of the ideas and plots have to be dropped or changed to suit the fickle movie going audience.

And I think that has to be done, I really do. If the third movie is going to cover the whole Phoenix story it has to be taken a carefully look at and cuts and changes need to be made to make it a non comic fan friendly movie.

In the end if you like the second movie and you want to experience this story the way it was meant to be go to your local comic book store and look for the just republished God Loves, Man Kills.

Nuff Said.