A new international trailer was just released for X-Men First Class. I mention this because I really think this is a movie that is going to surprise me. When I first heard of the movie, I really didn't care. I didn't follow the casting news, I laughed at the first promo images... the whole thing, to me, just sounded idiotic and pointless.
But you know, now that I've seen a couple of trailers... I have to say, I'm looking forward to this. I like that it's a period piece, that's something we haven't seen before. I like that it appears to take itself seriously but without the overwrought melancholy of, say, The Dark Knight. It looks exciting, and given how familiar superhero stories are it's hard to actually feel excited over one (Green Lantern, for example, pretty much looks like 2 hours of Ryan Reynolds going "wow!" while green CG chicken-people fly around his head; Thor looks like it will be very impressive and entertaining, but not exciting). This one really looks thrilling.
A lot of this may just be due to the property involved. The X-Men are not like other superheroes, and X-Men movies are not like other superhero movies. This trailer made me feel the way I first felt when I saw the X-Men back in... god, 92? 93? If the movie lives up to the trailer, I think it'll be a hell of a ride. Makes me want to go watch my X-Men DVDs right now.
UPDATE: Now of course Marvel is going to try to make some extra money off of this by forcing out some comic book tie-ins and promotions, but they're going to do it stupidly. Here's what they'll do: crank out new printings of their X-Men: First Class book, which featured new kid-friendly stories about the original X-Men team, Cyclops, Jean, Beast, Iceman, and Angel. Only ONE of those characters is in the movie, and in a drastically different form, and... well, the First Class comic series has been launched and canceled three times in the last four and a half years. So nobody wanted to read it the first time, but nonetheless, I see two new trade paperbacks published in the last couple of months, and an upcoming monthly magazine reprinting past issues. They're really banking on that name recognition working out for them...
Stupid idea number 2, printing new collections featuring the ACTUAL classic X-Men comics, starring the original team. The original series was canceled with issue #66, and ran reprints for nearly 30 issues before being completely overhauled with issue 94, beginning an unfathomably successful run (so good that they actually started reprinting issues 94-on in a separate series in 1986, and even that lasted over a hundred issues). Those original 66 issues are pretty terrible (X-Men was Marvel's lowest-selling title at the time), and have almost nothing in common with the series that we know and love today. But that won't stop Marvel from trying to milk that cow anyway for the cheap reprint value. X-Men First Class Magazine will feature a reprint of the classic first issue, and some recent new printings of Essential Classic X-Men guarantee there'll be some classic crap on the shelves for all to enjoy.
Of course stupid idea #3 would be to launch a big mega story event, playing off the themes of the original X-Men, tying them together with the current and impenetrable-to-the-new-reader X-Men. So naturally, X-Men: First to Last starts next month.
What would I do in Marvel's shoes? Dip into the classic bag of tricks and release a new series that OFFICIALLY follows from the events of the movie. They did it for Star Wars, Planet of the Apes, 2001... they used to do this all the time, and you know what, it worked. Sure, those series aren't canonical, they don't contribute to the greater tapestry of the Marvel universe, but they sold books and people liked them. I can't imagine why they never do that anymore.
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