X-Men - the FIRST First Class!

This summer is a windfall for comic book geeks everywhere at the movies. Thor, The X-Men, Green Lantern and Captain America are all up on the silver screen before the summer is even half-way through.

In that interest I'm taking a break from this week's "OTR Friday" with Vic & Sade, but be sure to check in next week for more of some of the finest comedy ever produced. I'm also taking a break from "A 'Slight' History of Golden Age Comic Book Super Heroes" to jump up to the Silver Age, because today "X-Men: the First Class" is hitting the big screen today!

This is probably the one comic book movie I'll wait to see when the Bue Ray/DVD release comes and won't venture to the cinemaplex. The X-Men movies are fun and all, but the characters in this glimpse back to the beginnings of the X-Men will feature a ret-conning of the original graduates from Professor Xavier's school for mutants and besides, I can only take so much scowling from twenty-something models/actors? and prefer to save my $12 bucks for other things.

The X-Men (the proper comic book version) debuted in the 1963 first issue of their own title from Marvel comics. Even though that was the year I was being born, I'd have loved to be at graduation. If only because that would be my only chance to ever meet Jean "Marvel Girl" Grey.

Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, it was another blast beginning the Marvel Age of comics. It's worth taking a look back at the original, even as the fan-boy movie makers do their revamp.

Dig in!

There you hav it, from 1963, the original band of misfits and outcasts led by a pretty smart guy in a wheelchair teaching them how to be heroes. I can see it now, a dark small apartment in 1963 Manhattan. Stan Lee says, "Let's do something with the letter 'X' in it!", then Jack Kirby flushes it out to a full-fledged idea and draws the bejeesus out of it turning it into a work of art, then Stan says, "I sure comes up with some great stuff!" and slaps his name on it. Ah the romantic days.

But you know, there's a little connundrum in the old comic book history books. Right across town at DC, they released a new team of heroes that very same month in 1963. A band of super powered misfits and outcasts led by a pretty smart guy in a wheelchair. Hmmmm?

Maybe someday I'll get a Doom Patrol movie. sigh.

Talk to you soon.