X2: And thus, the dominos fall

I hope you're a fan of leather because they're back to try and keep a war from happening to absolutely no success. Because one extremist group often makes another, let's take a look at a film where the extremist is a regular human who knows how to get his way when it comes to politics. Let's look at X2...

Spider-Man 2: Guilt be a two way street dear spider.

Fun fact, one of my earliest Spider-Man experiences was one of the Lego Sets for this movie (aside from watching… I’m not sure if it was the DVD or VCR, of Spider-Man 1 at my grandparents’ house with my cousins. You can blame them (or at least one in particular) for exposing me to superheroes). If anyone is curious as to the set, 4857 Doc Ock’s Fusion Lab. Doubt it will get a review cause I’ll probably have to replace parts (if I can find them), but it’s still a fun fact.

With a hit in the form of the original Spider-Man, it only makes sense that a sequel would be made, not to mention this was a point in time where the number 2 didn’t have negative views if it was attached to a Marvel movie, though Marvel did have a mixed reception at this time. People were still excited for Spider-Man 2, so how well does it hold up over a decade later? (Yeah, the first Spider-Man movie is going to be 20 years old in 2022, and the first X-Men movie is going to be 20 in 2020).

X-Men: #ISupportMutantRights #VoteYesForEquality

Everyone know why that's the title? We're all up to speed with what the X-Men are a metaphor for? Yes? Good. Moving on.

Many would say that the return of superhero movies can come down to two trillogies, potentially more, but most argue at least two. The Spider-Man trillogy, and the first three X-Men movies... even though many like to forget X-Men 3 even exists... along with Spider-Man 3.... could someone give me a list of every movie the internet wants to forget exists, I feel like there's a lot. Regardless of that, the point of these three weeks is to look at where Marvel has been with their movies before getting to the MCU, and what better way then Kevin Feige's first attempts at a crossover between two of Marvel's IP's on the big screen. While yes, the attempt was in Spider-Man, Wolverine had to come from somewhere right? Welcome to the start of the Mutant Revolution.

Spider-Man: No, I won't go into 9/11 here

That's not me saying that the 9/11 attacks don't play a role in how this movie was received, far from it actually. It's more that I am not the right person to go into something like that, the attacks happened when I was 5 after all. There are many, many, many other people who delve into how media has been affected, either in their creation or reception due to the attacks. Me? I'm going to do what I do, review the movie, but look at one other bit of the cultural landscape that this movie helped change. Because this was one of the movies that revived the superhero genre after Batman and Robbin almost killed it. You can trace back the Marvel Cinematic Universe if not many other superhero movies to this trilogy and the other trilogy of films this month taking up the Sunday slots, the X-Men. How well do they hold up by today's standards? One way to find out, starting with Spider-Man.

Mini Mega Man Marathon March Mania; Mega Man 4: What is all this... new stuff?

And so today, we bid farewell to the blue bomber for now. We shall return another day, but for now, let's finish this marathon with Mega Man 4.

Mini Mega Man Marathon March Mania; Mega Man 3: "We will show you our peaceful ways, with a giant heavily armed robot!"

With the success of Mega Man 2, Capcom saw that they had a successful franchise on their hand, and would start to suck it dry. Again, if I was doing all of these, I'd drive myself insane from all the Mega Man games. It's time though to make the jump to Mega Man 3 and see the new Mega Man Level Pack!

Dr. Wily's always watching!

Mini Mega Man Marathon March Mania; Mega Man 2: The Brentalfloss quoting is extremely tempting...

And the reason it is tempting is because of his "What if 'x' had lyrics" series was some of the first exposure I ever had to Mega Man (aside from the Smash 4 announcement trailer). I knew of him, but not enough to start playing the series. Now, why is this so late? Aside from the "I thought it was Monday" that I posted to Twitter, the other reasons were a project I was working on over the long weekend needing major reworking (Yes its on that trailer. Since when was Mediaholics ever punctual when it comes to these sorts of things?) and personal commitments taking up today. This started writing as soon as I finished dinner. We're going back to old school Mediaholics writing, where I had no idea I could schedule these!

Mini Mega Man Marathon March Mania; Mega Man 1 (NES): Yes, really, that's what we're calling this.

The blame for this name can be sent to @Keybug55 on Twitter.

Mega Man, the blue bomber, Jump and Shoot man, an icon that has gone through many names, many genres, and an insane amount of games (See here for why: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mega_Man_video_games ). If I was to review all of them in a row, I'd be here for a few years reviewing Mega Man games. You don't want that do you? I know I don't want to be doing that. So, let's do them in bursts. Such as now, where I'll be looking at the first four Mega Man games that came out on the NES, cause those versions are the ones people actually care about and the version ported to oblivion (some more than others). Starting with Mega Man 1. Welcome to 200x kids.

Yes, this did need both Bad Box Art Mega Men. One worse than the other.

Super Smash Brothers Melee: Sorry to keep you waiting

As some of you might be aware and remember, back in December 2014, I reviewed all the Super Smash Brothers games I had, to celebrate Smash WiiU’s release. One that didn’t get a lot of attention, but I felt like I had to review due to its stature in the Smash Bros community is Super Smash Brothers Melee. I've never owned an actual Gamecube before, I've owned a Wii, but until recently I hadn't obtained all the parts I needed to play Gamecube games off of it... ok I say recently, it was last year. As to why I've been putting it off, well this is going to be a short review because there isn't much to say about it, mechanicly at least. You'll see what I mean in a bit though.

Fire Emblem Warriors: "It was successful" "It was successful" "It was successful", just cause you repeat that, doesn't make it true

Does anyone else think this game was sent out to die? I don't mean that as a hint of what I think of the game, I genuinely mean it. The reason why this game took so long to review was mostly due to the timing of its release, one week before Super Mario Odyssey came out. I didn't actually get the game until the new year, just after they announced that Hyrule Warriors was coming to the Switch. Combine that with Dynasty Warriors 9 being in development around the same time, and the best way to describe its development are things like "rushed", "potentially understaffed" and other similar words and phrases. What also didn't help was how the game was critiqued prior to release due to how it was handling its roster and DLC, and there's a strong chance this game underperformed. Did it deserve to underperform? Well, one way to find out.