As you may know from reading previous posts, I’ve been rereading Chris Claremont’s epic run on X-Men (which became Uncanny X-Men and spawned the entire of X-family titles we now know and love… or hate), so it’s been a fine time for Claremont’s X-Men Forever to premiere. For the uninitiated, X-Men Forever is Claremont’s attempt to write an X-Men comic which disregards current continuity and picks up where he left off. X-Men Forever #1 is, in effect, (adjective-less) X-Men #4.

Many people are justifiably skeptical of this title. For one thing, Claremont’s return to Marvel 10 years ago met with only moderate success. A lot of fans respond to his work as being a bit too wordy for modern comics, and, let’s face it, his vision of the X-Men harkins back to the dawn of 90’s comics, a period now regarded as the industry’s worst hour.

I’m going to take the ride on this one, though, if for no better reason than the fact that I just like Chris Claremont. Ignoring the fact that The X-Men was one of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s least successful titles, which Claremont turned into the company’s flagship franchise, I’ve always found Claremont to be a genuinely friendly individual. I was 17 when I saw him in the gift shop of the Hyatt at Dragon Con, back when he was writing a respectable run on Fantastic Four. I approached him (which took a lot of effort at the time) and said, “I really like what you’re doing on the Fantastic Four.”

He said, “Thanks. Are you coming to the panel?”

“What panel,” I asked.

“It’s going on downstairs in about 10 minutes. You should drop by.”

Of course I did and really enjoyed his discussions of how he saw the Fantastic Four. Keep in mind this was around the time he introduced the character of Valeria Von Doom. During the Q & A, I asked him if he had foreseen during his run on X-Men that all of the X-prophesies, the alternate time lines and such, which were obviously giving editorial a headache at the time would cause so many problems. At first he just said, “What problems?” Which was met by sparse laughter. Then after a moment of reflection he said, “I didn’t really think they would cause any problems because I never thought I would stop writing the book.” The room exploded with applause.

Anyway, I found an interview which Claremont gave to Wizard Magazine right around the time X-Men #1 with it’s Jim Lee pencils and five variant covers was coming out. He has a clear vision of where the comic should go, and you can tell from the interview that he’s optimistic about the future of the franchise, however he quit before the interview saw print.

What can I say? I love the X-men and can’t wait to see what happens with this title. I think us X-fans owe Claremont at least a first-issue courtesy read.

I’m not the kind of guy who sits around wondering which super hero would beat which in a fight (because Batman beats everyone, period), but I caught myself today wondering how the frequent and famous clashes between The Fantastic Four’s Thing and The Incredible Hulk turned out. Fortunately www.leaderslair.com has a fantastic section entitled “Hulk Smashes!!!” I first discovered this site when wondering whether the Hulk had ever tangled with the Blob (thrice, and Blob lost every time). Today, however, I was watching the Thing take on an army of robot Hulks in Dan Slott’s run on the short-lived second attempt at giving the hero his own title, “The Thing.” For the record, “Hulk Smashes” tells me that out of 32 clashes between Aunt Petunia’s blue-eyed Benjamin J. Grimm and the not-so-Jolly Green Giant, Hulk has had 5 decisive victories while Thing has had only one. Too bad Thing doesn’t have that exponential strength to go along with his mood swings.

I’ve been reading some of Claremont’s original run on Uncanny X-Men, which is some of the best comics ever produced. I was reading Uncanny X-Men #189 and came across these two panels:

Of course this is Rachel Summers, aka Phoenix II, recalling the New York skyline of her alternate reality post apocalyptic future, but put this image in perspective. It was 1985. What’s more frightening than the thought that someone could take down the two most recognizable buildings on Manhattan? Surely that would be the end of civilization as we know it. I’m not trying to suggest that Claremont’s some kind of prophet. I just think it’s interesting to look at 9/11 as one of a nation’s most impossible nightmares coming true.

Like a lot of people, I was pleasantly surprised when I found myself enjoying DC’s weekly comic, 52, which followed the exploits of DC’s less-marketed heroes during the “Big Three’s*” one-year hiatus following the events of Infinite Crisis. DC was even shocked at how well that series was received. Unlike a lot of people, though, I read all 52 issues of the next year’s follow-up, Countdown to Final Crisis. Since I am, in the Southern vernacular, “hard to learn,” I decided to give Trinity a chance as well.

Trinity was also a 52-issue weekly series, however this story would focus primarily on DC’s most popular heroes. I couldn’t help but be optimistic. The story was written by Fabian Nicieza and Kurt Busiek, comic veterans with hundreds of great stories to their names, and drawn by Mark Bagley, who is most widely recognized these days for having drawn the first 110 issues of Ultimate Spider-Man. In other words, these men are professionals who are more than capable of doing their jobs extremely well. So what happened?

I’ve held back all criticism until the story was finished, but now I don’t even know what the story was about. Essentially Morgaine Le Fey, The Riddler from Earth-2 (Enigma), and Despero (though it turns out later he’s actually not) cast a spell to set themselves up as the trinity of the DC universe, replacing Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, thus recasting the world in their image. Fair enough, but did we really need to take 20 issues just to get that far in the story? I’ll save you the details, but 32 issues later everything gets restored to normal, except that Tomorrow Woman (remember her from Grant Morrison’s run on JLA?) is back from the dead and maybe not a robot anymore and Enigma is running around Earth-2 with his energy-based daughter making life difficult for The Crime Syndicate of Amerika.

This book was promised as something that would have a far-reaching impact on the ongoing DC titles, but Batman died in Final Crisis and was replaced by Dick Grayson before Trinity, which features Bruce Wayne as Batman for the entire run, even finished. In the last issue, it’s made apparent that most of the heroes aren’t even supposed to remember what happened after the story is over. How is that supposed to have an impact on the future?

It’s not that this was such a bad story so much as it was much longer and more convoluted than it ever needed to be. I might have enjoyed Trinity as a 12-issue limited series, but $150 in this economy is way too much to charge someone to read a story that has no impact and really says nothing about the characters that hasn’t been said better elsewhere. At the end of the day, though, I really just want back the time I wasted reading these comics.

*Comic terminology referring to Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman.

While the actual Green Lantern movie won’t be released until June of 2011, you can watch this trailer 20 or 30 times if you just can’t wait. Obviously this is a fan video using clips of other films to create a fake GL trailer, but it’s one of the more convincing ones I’ve seen. I always thought Dennis Quaid was the perfect Hal Jordan, but of course he’s too old now. Nathan Fillion would make an ideal choice for Jordan, but Serenity’s box office failure means he probably won’t be first pick to star in a $150 million movie. Hats off to Jaron Pitts who put this video together.