Hey there all you X-fans, Harry here... back from an extraordinary journey to Los Angeles... Where I just didn't find the time to sneak in and take a look at any more of the X-MEN work... Instead I was off looking at other treasures (to be discussed in other columns that my lazy ass has not yet written.) BUT... In my place, Father Geek, had been laying the groundwork to get us this exclusive with Ian McKellen... This is to address the early opinions of his Magneto Costume... (which I have to say is not Nazi-esque) In two days, you will see more of this on McKellen.Com, but for now... tis here alone... Listen to Gandalf.... He's is wise for an actor...

"As for recent revelations - it is clear that the spy has seen some genuine design plans that are partially correct. But his/her comments are way off mark. There is nothing, for example, about Magneto's appearance that invokes the Third Reich and I have been puzzled by my correspondents' concern that somehow I intended to interpret Erik Lensherr (as he once was) as a Nazi-sympathiser. Then it clicked - Singer fans who have seen Apt Pupil have assumed that this actor only has one performance in him and that inevitably Stephen King's Dussander could not transform himself into Magneto. Since the Nazi, I have played an English gay film director (Gods and Monsters, a Russian family doctor (Chekov's The Seagull, an aging matinee idol (Noel Coward's Present Laughter and a shipwrecked magician/politician (Shakespeare's The Tempest.

The vituperation against the modernity of the costume designs is misdirected. I challenge any of the fanboys to name a living actor who possesses the cartoon torso of the original comic strip character. It obviously can't be stressed too often for those unfamiliar with the problems of adapting material for the cinema, that what works on the page (novels and plays included) has to be adapted (which means changed) to work on the screen.

I break no confidence in telling you that the spirit of the movie will accord with Marvel but the look will be different. I have been through all this before, when translating Shakespeare's play of Richard III into a movie. If you are interested, read my introduction to the published screenplay available from my website. There I explain why it is necessary to alter, adapt and interpret. A movie is not a play. Nor, equally, is it a comic. If it were, there would be no point in spending $78,000,000!