Puny God.

Puny god.

William Shakespeare’s Avengers (Part 18/?)

You’re repeating yourself.

William Shakespeare’s Avengers (Part 23/?)

If you could make movies about Hank, how many would you do and what could we see in them? Like an origin story, specific storyline etc. Would it be live action or a cartoon/animation, if live action who would you cast as Beast?

Now this is a fun thought experiment!

So, I actually think that if I was going to focus specifically on Hank, I would want multiple series, each separated according to decade or periods of his life, as it were, and we're going to mix media a little bit. Bear with me. This is probably going to be a multi-part series, so, here's the first part.

60s/First Class

So, we start off with a live action series that begins in medias res - alarms are blaring, people are rushing through corridors, klaxons are bathing corridors in red light. Through it all, a young man with a frightened but determined look on his face fights through the tide until he reaches a room full of radiation suits. He pulls one on, takes a few deep breaths, and then pushes through into a reactor room that's clearly going critical.

No music. No dialogue. No sound, except for the thumping of a heart beat and the sounds of this intricate mechanism being cajoled, being calmed, being put right again, until eventually the alarm lifts. Now it's just the sound of heavy, panicked breathing, and the man keels over at the railing nearest to him as a group of men in identical radiation suits rush to him. He blacks out.

When he comes to, he smiles at the woman sitting beside his bed, and moves as if to kiss her, but she smacks his arm, before embracing him and kissing him. A doctor moves in to talk, but there's still no dialogue, just soft music. A small montage of people in suits, offering the man in the bed a lot of paperwork that he signs. Before long, he's well enough to leave the hospital, and he and his wife drive to a farm. They stand on the outskirts, arms wrapped around one another. Camera pulls back, revealing the name on the mailbox.

McCoy.

Cut to the intro, which is nuclear flames, genomes shattering, a mysterious, animalistic figure gazing out of shadow with yellow eyes that turn into spotlights, revealing the title of the show.

'X-MEN: BEAST - FIRST CLASS'

17 YEARS LATER

A young man who's the spitting image of the man we saw in this prologue sequence is being harassed by a young woman with blonde hair. They're talking about the last quiz they just had to take in Biology, and the young woman tells the young man that he needs to stop hiding who he is. How brilliant he is. He tells her that he's on the high end of normal, and she scoffs. They walk by a football tryout, where the coach is harassing his team, telling them that any old nerd could do better than them.

"You, McKay - over here, show 'em what I mean."

"It's McCoy, sir, and I don't know quite what you mean?"

The coach becomes ever more insistent. McCoy shrugs, shaking his head. He kicks the ball. It sails clean, hits the goal - at the other end of the pitch. The coach is flabbergasted. He wants McCoy for the team, but McCoy is uncertain - until the team kicks off, saying they don't want this gorilla on their team. One of them, identified as Janssen by his jersey, is particularly venomous, and McCoy gives him a coldly furious look.

"Coach, what position does Janssen play?"

Smash cut to the same number on the team, but with MCCOY on the back. Sports montage, naturally, with MCCOY as star player, intercut with the occasional side-eyed look from a parent or onlooker whenever he does something a little too amazing.

Jen is the love interest of the movie. She's great.

Final game of the season. Crowds are roaring, full football Americana experience. MCCOY is in full swing, but we aren't seeing things from his perspective, we're seeing things from somewhere up in the bleachers - from some kind of scope. It zooms in hard on MCCOY, a finger tenses, squeezes - misses. Screaming, hysteria. The scope view panics as MCCOY comes charging towards it, and we zoom out to see Janssen as McCoy clambers up the side of the bleachers with unnatural ease.

They fight. McCoy knocks the rifle away, but he's a little too strong, and Janssen nearly falls over the edge, and it's quite the drop. McCoy grabs him and stops him from going over, but he can't use his other hand to hold on to the bleachers and Janssen at the same time. He knocks off his shoe, and we get our first look at an oversized foot that looks to be as dextrous as a hand. McCoy moves to use this odd limb to help Janssen up.

Janssen hisses. Says he'd rather die than get help from a filthy stinking mutant that crawls all over human girls like he's a real man. He smacks McCoy's hand away, drops. We don't see the impact, but McCoy does. His eyes widen. He yanks off the football helmet and throws up, staggering as he climbs back up, just in time for the officials to come storming in. He looks red-faced, shaking. He looks guilty.

We cut to the farm. The McCoy family are quiet, withdrawn - worried. The parents keep looking outside, where their son has taken to disassembling and reassembling every piece of farm equipment available to him, as if that's going to make him feel any better. Edna and Norton talk, and they feel guilty, Norton especially, about the legacy they've given poor Hank, as we pan up over the kitchen counter and see a newspaper headline exclaiming about the mutant panic taking over the nation.

A knock at the door. Norton looks pale, so Edna answers - to a man dressed like some kind of Conquistador, which he identifies himself as. He brings out a sword and seems to cast some form of electricity with it, striking down Edna and Norton, drawing their son back to the house with a speed that defies thought, and it's only this lightning sword that stops him from bowling the man over right there and then.

The Conquistador wants this young man, Hank, to do him a favour - use his father's ID card to steal some specific components from the nuclear power plant he works at. He looks basically identical to him, he shouldn't even be questioned. His sword twitches in the direction of Hank's parents, and his jaw sets. He agrees.

A short, tense sequence at the power plant. Hank does the deed, but it's dangerous and it goes wrong, the alarms are sounded - but he gets away. He escapes to a warehouse where his parents are being held by the Conquistador's men, and the man is raving, rambling.

Hank trounces them, effortlessly. It's superhuman to watch, and Edna and Norton are wide eyed as Hank frees them, all of them silent. Norton opens his mouth, apologises. Hank doesn't understand, apologising for what? Norton gestures at Hank's obviously overgrown hands and feet. For that. That's his fault. Hank's expression darkens, and Norton realises what he's said without thinking, and he looks to Edna, but she doesn't know what to say. Behind them, the Conquistador is getting back up, pulling up his sword, aiming it at Hank's back.

A ruby red beam comes out of nowhere, blasting it away, and Hank turns around, to see . . .

The Professor explains who he is. What the people with him are, what Hank is - a mutant. Hank already knows, and the Professor smiles a little, because of course Hank does. The conversation continues, and Hank is interested, intrigued, even - he keeps glancing back at his parents, but they look very uncertain, even as they do their best to give him smiles and make sure he knows they're okay.

"There will be sacrifices, Hank. This won't be an easy life. But it will be a worthy one."

Hank agrees, but before he walks off with Xavier and the other X-Men, he embraces his parents one more time. He's holding them tighter than they are him when he lets go.

The series then adapts some 60s X-Men, some First Class stories - I'd definitely want to pull in the story where Hank and Bobby first becomes friends during a vacation road trip across the US; the Unus the Untouchable arc, where Hank becomes a wrestler; a momentary flirtation with Jean Grey, before he realises who she's pretty much destined to end up with; the beatnik foot cult; Magneto.

Costumes change, villains go by, and Hank is enjoying himself, growing, but as he grows older, he seems less satisfied.

Especially since we find out that Xavier wiped Jen's mind, and she no longer remembers Hank. For their safety. Hank is. Not pleased. It's the first wedge between him and the Professor, and they paper over it, but. It sticks.

Towards the end of the series, he receives a letter in the mail, and when it comes time to do Danger Room exercises, he's conspicuously absent. Xavier is oddly reticent to talk to him, and instead suggests that Scott, Bobby, Warren and Jean talk to him instead. Hank is in his room, the letter in his hands, and seeming torn. They all talk.

Hank wants to leave the X-Men. The very concept shakes them a little - the last time this happened, Unus attacked and they were nearly defeated - but the newfound confidence of having done this for a few years now means that they understand why Hank wants to move on. Everyone's been thinking about it, actually, Hank's just the first one to have a place he wants to go to rather than just 'not the school.'

They embrace. Bobby in particular takes a little longer than everyone else to let go, and it's clear it's killing him a little that Hank is going, but he does let go.

The final scene of the series is Hank in civilian clothes saying his final goodbyes. There's not a dry eye in the house. Jean kisses him on the cheek, Bobby hugs him way too hard, Scott clasps his shoulder, Warren gives him a fistbump. The Professor shakes his hand. They're all sad to see him go, but this is for the best.

Hank gets into his car, and starts it up. He looks back at the Mansion, the X-Men, wistfully, thinking, for a moment, that he should stop and go back. But in the end, he puts the car in gear and drives. As he leaves the Mansion, he adjusts the rear view mirror.

For the audience, Hank is replaced by something wearing his clothes. Dark furred. Monstrous. Unfamiliar. Familiar. Yellow eyed.

End credits. End of the series.

To be continued.

I actually have no idea who I'd want to play a young Hank, I'm not as up to date on young actors as I'd like, but I've been recommended someone called Noah Centino for a 17-20 year old Hank, so, sure? Whoever they are, they need to be able to pull off Hank's distinctive Superman curl.

I'd definitely want an almost sort of 'The Incredibles' tone to the X-Men sections of this series, where it's all deathly dangerous but the X-Men almost don't seem to realise until they do. Michael Giacchino does the score, because the man can do no wrong.

You didn’t see that coming.

William Shakespeare’s Avengers (Part 21/?)

// Just a PSA. I've been using Kit.boga's Seraph.Secure for the last couple weeks. and on the Christmas Tree meme link- where it takes you to the tree you can decorate for friends- and Seraph gives you alerts when potential scammers are trying to get a hold of your computer. I've been fine for 2 weeks, but the only time thus far I've got an alert from Seraph (it pops up in the corner, it makes a noise and it emails me.) and told me to get off the site because it can be potential fraud? Not sure if it is or not... Nonetheless, please be careful if you do choose to use the "Decorate my Christmas Tree" site.

Also, 10/10 would recommend Kit's program. Info video on the said program: [link] Kit works with authorities to shut down call centres, recover stolen accounts, and give people sources to get their lives back. Seraph.Secure is only $2/mo with a 2 week free trial. It will alert you if scammers are on your computer and or stops scams before they start. -edit no.1- *I had a friend reach out and tell me that their anti-virus blocked the site when they tried to access it. SO PLEASE BE CAREFUL AND OR DO NOT USE THE DECORATE MY TREE SITE!!!! -edit no.2- I would advise that you change your password for your email and make your you have 2-factor authenticator turned on! I have also been advised since i personally didn't make a tree, that you can't delete your account after signing up to make a said tree. That you have to be sent a code to delete the account- which, never comes. That is very suspicious.

Christmas Post

Soooo actually I wanted to write a poem for every single one of you and send it your way. BUT it turned out that I got this idea way too late and even if I'm good in english I'm not that good to write that many poems in such a short time.

Soooo instead of writing everyone their own poem I just post those I already got and tag you all here.

I wish you all a merry and happy christmas I love you all and I'm so thankfull to know every single one of you. You all are so amazing!

Poem 1:

The snow falls down and glitters so bright. Everywhere you look, a blanket of white. It's the day of peace and love, The day of christmas time. Look how beautiful and bright the lights shine.

Be merry, be jolly, be full and be fed, Have a beautiful christmas eve, My dear, lovely friend. Because it's Christmas, as you know. The day of magic, That always makes us wonder and glow.

Poem 2:

Oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree, how you are standing there so beautiful and free. Decorated with lots of colorful ornaments, with wholesome little messages. There to make your moment oh so sweet, to make your celebration complete.

Poem 3:

Can you see it? See the christmas tree? The christmas tree, that shines in its magical glow, With its candles that are burning beautifully, dim and low?

Can you smell it? Smell the delicious aroma? The aroma of cinnamon and christmas, that reminds us of wonder and forgivness?

Can you hear it? Hear the songs on Christmas eve? The songs that lets us hope, dream and believe?

Can you feel it? Feel the holy spirit? The spirit of christmas time Dear friend, Oh mine?

The spirit that flows through the night, That sparks joy and laughter, oh so bright. With all its love and peace, holding us warm and tight.

Can you, dear friend of mine?

poem 4:

Oh Silent Night, Oh Holy Night, All is calm, all is bright. The moon shines gently, from above, As we lay wrapped in warmth and love.

The angels sing so beautifully, And it feels like heaven here. With our hearts so pure and joly, and our hopes in all its glory.

Standing here so quiet and still, thinking of you at the end of this year. I wish you a merry christmas. May it will make you happy and cheer.

poem 5:

Up on the rooftop, Santa sits with care, Waiting to deliver presents, Everywhere.

He came from a place far away, to spread joy and happiness to make it oh so sweeter, your holiday.

Let love in, and your sorrows out. For it is christmas, the time of love, wonder and hope. This is all what it's about.

So let the merriment begin! May your day be filled with laughter. May your day be filled with love. May you hear the angles sing, from the havens up above.

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