Originally published on Set The Tape
This year I took part in the Set The Tape Listmas articles, sharing my thoughts on some of my favourite media from the last year, but one of the lists was about media that wasn't from 2023. I share some of the older media that I've been loving this last twelve months.
Seeing Aliens in the cinema
I’ve already written extensively about how this year I got to see Aliens in the cinema for the first time ever, and lucky for me I can write about it all over again and make you hear it a second time!
I grew up watching Aliens thanks to an uncle who didn’t really police what videos of his I borrowed and watched, and I strongly believe his relaxed attitude helped to create my love of both science fiction and horror (I also borrowed Predator a lot). I don’t know the exact age that I first saw Aliens, but I do remember having watched it as far back as I can remember, and it’s always been a part of my life. It’s a film that I could probably quote near all of the dialogue to if you were to put me on the spot. It’s become lodged in both my brain and my heart in ways that no other film has.
Over the years it’s been shown in cinemas a few times, usually in the kinds of cinemas that show nothing but older genre films. Sadly, I’ve either missed those showings, or have just not been able to travel across the country to do it. But this year it was released just down the road from me, and I jumped at the chance to see it on the big screen. It was an amazing experience, one that took me back to my childhood (weird for that film I know), and made me appreciate how this film helped to shape me into the person I am today.
Uncanny X-Men
The X-Men are my favourite corner of the Marvel Universe. The huge cast of characters have some amazing creations in them, and whilst some of the stories are more like terrible soap operas, there are some great runs and events across its history. I also think me being part of a minority that is often demonised in the media and by politicians I very much relate to the ‘feared and hated’ and continually treated like sub-human type stories in the X-Men’s catalogue. Magneto was right, by the way.
With current X-Men stuff revolving around the Krakoan Age, and being a huge commitment, I thought I’d wait until it was done before diving in and reading through it all. So, to fill the time until then I decided to go back to where X-Men began as the thing we really know it as now. Not the original Stan Lee stuff, but Chris Claremont‘s Giant-Sized X-Men, which not only introduced characters like Nightcrawler, Storm, Colossus, and Wolverine to the team, but created many of the best stories that people still recommend and adapt.
I’ve been reading my way through the series since that point, covering things like the Dark Phoenix saga, Days of Future Past, Storm becoming the leader of the X-Men, and the introduction of Shadowcat to the universe. I knew Claremont created a lot of stuff, and brought in things others had created, but I was shocked by just how much stuff that is now just an intrinsic part of the X-Men began in this era. Old comics can sometimes be hard reads, and there are times these issues can be tough to get through, but even the worst of this era are still fantastic to read. It’s like reading the true birth of the X-Men.
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