Admiral Mark Jameson and the 90's Professor X

[Admiral Archer]

Not really a specifically TNG related thread, but I had no idea where else to put it.

For everyone who grew up in the 90's, the X-Men animated series was a major part of pop culture. Even someone like me, who didn't get into comics until much later, knew about them. My favorite character was Professor X (even before Patrick Stewart portrayed him, although that just cemented my love for the character). I always loved how he was the respected father figure, and even being a mentor, he was cool because even though he couldn't walk, he had that awesome gold hover chair. He would come to influence my love for heroes who used their minds over their muscles.

Now to what makes this a Star Trek post. I was watching "Too Short A Season" from TNG's first season, and noticed way back in 1987, before the 90's X-Men ever aired, Admiral Mark Jameson had a hoverchair which strongly resembled the one that Professor X would come to use. Coincidence? Maybe. After all, I have no idea when Professor X started using the hoverchair in the comic books. Anyway, I couldn't help but wish while watching the episode that Bryan Singer had built a similar prop for his X-Men movies. And if you are curious, like I was, as to how that might look, here is a picture I edited together of Patrick Stewart as Professor X in Admiral Mark Jameson's hoverchair. It's not perfect, but it is some food for thought.

Huge image deleted for bandwidth limitation issues.
See Post # 5 by Melakon for the photo in a reasonable size.

 

[Maurice]

FYI, the board guidelines impress on us that pictures should be no more than 640 pixels wide, and this is waaaaay beyond that.
I have to scroll horizontally to read the lines of your post.

 

[Melakon]

Yes, it's almost 1600 wide. Being a .png file, it's over 1 meg in size, while board guidelines are 50-70kb. Not everyone has high speed internet. Changing the image to a .jpg file would reduce it to a few hundred kb, definitely less at 640.

 

[Squiggy]

Yes, it's almost 1600 wide. Being a .png file, it's over 1 meg in size, while board guidelines are 50-70kb. Not everyone has high speed internet. Changing the image to a .jpg file would reduce it to a few hundred kb, definitely less at 640.

A vast majority does though. Getting a png file to that size would be this big.

Boy. That really adds a lot to the conversation. Might as well not allow images.

 

[Melakon]

That's why I suggested a jpg instead. Here it is as a 640 jpg, I always add about 15% compression, so it's coming out at 27.9kb. No added compression probably would have been about 65-70kb.

 

[Maurice]

A vast majority does though. Getting a png file to that size would be this big.

Boy. That really adds a lot to the conversation. Might as well not allow images.

So, we should just ignore the board guidelines because most of us have high speed internet and giant monitors? 'Fraid not.

Besides, you don't use PNGs for images like this, That's what JPGs are for.

 

[Squiggy]

So, we should just ignore the board guidelines because most of us have high speed internet and giant monitors? 'Fraid not.

Board guidelines need to stop acting like it's 1999.

 

[Mudd]

So, we should just ignore the board guidelines because most of us have high speed internet and giant monitors? 'Fraid not.

Board guidelines need to stop acting like it's 1999.

 

[ManOnTheWave]

Jim Lee, who redesigned the X-Men costumes, logos, and equipment around 1991 was a Trek fan. So the similarity between chairs is likely deliberate. However, Lee's Professor X wheelchair wasn't supposed to be a hover chair. Rather it road around on a giant ball.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Nor was Jameson's...the thing went right down to the deck.

 

[Orphalesion]

The 90s X-Men costumes where some of the most hideous things they ever wore, imho; overly-detailed and with some terrible color-choices (that many 90s cartoons had a terrible color-palette anyway didn't help).
I always disliked that hoverchair/giant-ball chair in particular. IIRC it was alien technology and, to me, having Prof X float around in a super-special alien chair removed him too much from reality, if that makes sense. I much prefer him in a regular wheelchair myself.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

^Same here. I loved it when in the movies, they wore all black leather-it made them look cooler.

 

[FormerLurker]

Jim Lee's costume designs are, to me, always substandard. Too much stuff hanging off, too many lines, no flow. He did it again with his New52 designs for DC Comics a couple of years ago.

As for the hoverchair, it first appeared in the '70s, during John Byrne's run as illustrator of The Uncanny X-Men(the only mutant title at Marvel at the time). Professor X only used it while visiting his girlfriend Lilandra Neramani at her place, the Imperial Palace of the Shiar Empire, where she was empress.

 

[Cyke101]

Jim Lee, who redesigned the X-Men costumes, logos, and equipment around 1991 was a Trek fan. So the similarity between chairs is likely deliberate. However, Lee's Professor X wheelchair wasn't supposed to be a hover chair. Rather it road around on a giant ball.

I've been rereading his X-Men work, and LCARS definitely pops up here and there.

 

[Orphalesion]

To be fair, Cyclops' uniform was the only one by Jim Lee that looked decent (imho) Jean Grey's and Storm's, on the other hand where among the most hideous costumes they ever wore (WHY put Ororo in white for all that's holy? She looked like an overgrown moth!) Rogue could have looked good without the leather jacket (and without the ginormous early 90s hair, but that's a given)

As for the hoverchair, yeah it showed up earlier but in the 70s/80s Xavier still used an ordinary wheelchair while on Earth, the hover chair was only for his adventures in space before Lee.

Personally I don't get why they ever dropped Storm's classic look. With a bit of tweaking to update/streamline it, it's still her most iconic, beautiful and flattering costume:

 

[FormerLurker]

That isn't a tweaked version of the costume. One, it has pants, no bracelets, and her neck is bare. No shades of classic Dave Cockrum design except the headdress. Two, it's Greg Land, tracing a still from a porn film.

 

[Jedi_Master]

I heard a rumor that Jameson's wheelchair was very expensive to develop, and the cost ended up limiting some of the other things they wanted to do on that episode.

Does anyone have more details about that?

 

[Orphalesion]

That isn't a tweaked version of the costume. One, it has pants, no bracelets, and her neck is bare. No shades of classic Dave Cockrum design except the headdress. Two, it's Greg Land, tracing a still from a porn film.

True with Greg Land, not usually a fan of him, but I do like that particular picture of Ororo.

Here's a better picture of the costume:

True it is a bit different than the 70s version, but I'd still call it a tweaked/updated/streamlined version of the same basic costume.

As you can see here it has bracelets, it has the same color scheme, her arms are bare and it has the red gem (later explained as being given to her by that Savage Land lady) at her neckline.
All that's really changed is that the poncho was turned into a cape (still attached to her sleeves) and the swimsuit was replaced with pants.

 

[FormerLurker]

^The original design by Dave Cockrum had a cape, that draped between the back of the shoulders and the bracelets. The 'swimsuit' was a sleeveless leotard that came up the neck as a choker-type design. It never had the red gem. And I prefer the tall boots to the footie pajamas seen here.

 

[Orphalesion]

^The original design by Dave Cockrum had a cape, that draped between the back of the shoulders and the bracelets. The 'swimsuit' was a sleeveless leotard that came up the neck as a choker-type design. It never had the red gem. And I prefer the tall boots to the footie pajamas seen here.

Cape: I know, that's why I called it a poncho earlier. In the costume I showed the cape is still attached to the bracelets, it just doesn't drape over her shoulders anymore.

I prefer the pants to the tigh-high boots which are actually the one element of her original design I'm not a fan off.

The gem: yes she had it.

Anyway I'm happy with any variation of her original black and yellow costume.