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There are surely better superhero movies than 2000’s X-Men, but there may not be a more important comic book movie in the history of Hollywood.
Yes, studios had attempted to turn comics into franchises before Fox made X-Men, and Warner Bros. had already had huge success with their Superman and Batman film series. Remember, though, where Superman and Batman were in the late 1990s.
At that point, the Christopher Reeve Superman saga had been defunct for over a decade, and Warners’ first attempt to reboot the Man of Steel flamed out in spectacular fashion when Tim Burton’s Superman Lives died a very premature death. In some ways, that was still a better outcome than what happened to the Batman franchise, which had become a laughingstock by the end of the decade thanks to the absurd Batman & Robin. It was the era of Steel and Spawn and The Shadow. Those who wanted to believe that comic book movies were juvenile junk had plenty of evidence to support their claims.
There had never been a major Marvel film in theaters at that point, and there was plenty of skepticism in the industry that such a thing was even possible. Fox had spent years trying to adapt Marvel’s X-Men comics, but the property’s enormous cast of characters, elaborate super powers, and exaggerated costumes all proved difficult to translate into a single live-action feature. When they finally did it in the summer of 2000, and the film proved to be a major financial hit across multiple demographics, it completely changed how Hollywood producers viewed comics as source material.
Which is why I was so fascinated by the debut issue of Flix!, which I recently acquired from a friend. Flix! was a publication by the staff of Wizard, the leading magazine in the 1990s about the worlds of comics and superheroes. Wizard #99 from November of 1999 came bagged with the first (and, as far as I can tell, only) issue of Flix! Its cover features an image of Wolverine’s claws with the caption “It’s On! X-Men Begins Filming! The Full Scoop Inside! Entire Cast Revealed!”
Only the cast they reveal is not completely accurate — and a lot of the information contained inside is incorrect, either because of bad intel or films that changed drastically during their development. That almost makes Flix! a time capsule from an alternate reality where Jim Caviezel was nearly in X-Men and Arnold Schwarzenegger played Doc Savage, as well as a pretty compelling document of a huge pivot point in the history of mainstream Hollywood. Join me on a look back at a time when the very idea that a major studio might create a Marvel movie was such a big deal that someone made an entire magazine out of it.
A Look Inside Flix!, a Short-Lived Magazine Dedicated to Comic Book Movies From 1999
The comic magazine Wizard tried to expand into comic book movies in the late 1990s with something called Flix!, all about the world of superheroes onscreen. 25 years later, it is a wild time capsule.
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Matt Singer
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