I can talk about blonde femme fatales other than Cara.

[seriousfic]

This is Emma Frost.



This is a woman dressed as Emma Frost for jaytablante.



Well-played, cosplay. I actually think you could get away with having that be her costume in the movie, if you want to get away from the weirder aspects of "a professor takes teenagers away from their homes and dresses them in skintight black leather." I mean, it's James McAvoy, so there's probably an audience for that... but yeah, just replace the crop-top with something corset-y and you're good. I only say that because I have a hard time taking badasses seriously when I can see their bellybuttons.


Pictured: Badass. Not pictured: Whether he's an innie or an outie.

And for gratuity's sake, Alice Eve, the woman who's been cast to play Emma, and a casting suggestion I liked, Jessica Marais, in case Alice Eve turns out to be a horribly-cast flavor of the month. I only say that because Halle Berry. Just... Halle Berry. I'VE BEEN BURNED BEFORE, HERE!





So now Jason Flemyng has been cast in X-Men: First Class as Nightcrawler's father, Azazel, and fandom is going nuts because... well, it's a Chuck Austen character, part of a horrible storyline in which Kurt turns out to be descended from a literal demon. Now, since it's movieverse and a Matthew Vaughn/Bryan Singer collaboration... both of them guys with good heads on their shoulders... I doubt they're going straight from gritty realism and civil rights metaphors to demons from hell. In all likelihood, they're doing a completely original character and letting him share a name with Kurt's comics father as a sop to canon and because it's not a terrible name. Just like how William Stryker went from an evil televangelist to a military commander who created Wolverine because of his evil mutant son. So let's all take a deep breath and go see Scott Pilgrim again.

But with the casting of Kevin Bacon as (rumored) Sebastian Shaw and Oliver Platt as "the nonmutant man in black," not to mention Emma being in the cast, I'm guessing Azazel is one of the Hellfire Club. Since it's an origin story, they might even go with the Ultimates universe canon that Hellfire bankrolled the X-Men as part of a dastardly scheme. The Hellfire Club is one of the few really serious X-Men Big Bads you can do, now that the Brotherhood of Mutants and evil government conspiracies have been played out, before getting into the realm of alien space monsters, immortal Victorian scientists, and whatever the hell Apocalypse's deal is. And since thus far no minorities have managed to save us from evolution-obsessed Egyptian pharaohs with advanced technology (that's Apocalypse's thing, right?), that would stretch the central metaphor a little far.

Comments

[mauders.livejournal.com]

I think Kevin Bacon would make a great sebastian shaw. He's certainly slimey enough. I have concerns about Alice Eve as Emma. I have a feeling her character will just be the totty, but I'm hoping not. I want a fully rounded character please with an actress that can pull it off!

[solitarysputnik.livejournal.com]

I'd actually quite like to see Portia de Rossi or Olivia Williams as Frost - they've both proven they can do the domineering woman role, Rossi at least is great as a blond...
...Although I just now discovered that Williams already has an X-men role: It seems she appears in Last Stand as Moira McTaggart, which is a hell of a role to not get a credit.