It’s clear that after two seasons, that Arrow has secured serious fanboy cred, and is probably THE superhero/comic book TV show. Not only does it have a panel tonight (Friday), but it’s a part of the WB TV 3 hour sploosh fest tomorrow night at Hall H.

I wonder how many push ups Stephen Amell will do for us.

And we’re on: Arrow is CW’s most watched show for past two years, which is a dubious distinction, but a distinction nonetheless.

Damian Holbrook of WB promises that we’ll be more excited and informed about season 3 after this panel.

Special sneak peak is happening! We see Oliver going on a DATE with Felicity, and then her bruised/bloodied/definitely not dead. Diggle’s pissed. Lance is alive. Laurel and Ollie are business partners. Amanda Waller is Ollie’s captor. Roy has a new leather outfit. We meet Ray Palmer (Brandon Routh). He of course tells someone that they have failed this city.

Here’s the clip, with an added reveal of Season 3’s Big Bad, Ra’s al Ghul:

So we got Paul Blackthorne, John Barrowman, Willa Holland, Stephen Amell, Colton Haynes, David Ramsey, Greg Berlanti, Andrew Kreisberg and Marc Guggenheim. No Emily Bett Rickards…who’s filming/breaking hearts.

Kreisberg was terrified to write season 2, the hardest thing he had to write. Didn’t know how to top the first season, and didn’t wanto to fizzle out.

Always planning for John Barrowman to be a regular in season 3. He’s used to disappearing and coming back as Captain Jack, of course.

Season 3 is already mapped out. Marc Guggenheim shows the cork boards on his phone. “Shower scene” is joked about, and Amell/Barrowman high five.

Thought the most shocking thing to do with season 2 would be a happy ending after the first season.

In Season 3, Ollie is completely embracing hero side. Amell is a champion for the show as much as Ollie is for Starling City. Made promise that the show wasn’t going to suck, and aimed to keep it. “That’s what drives us every day.” Amell is a more soft spoken gent than I’d have guessed.

Willa and Colton’s  first scene was their kissing scene. Directed to make it more “mouth to mouth.”

New Thea in season 3 completely:”I’ve been hitting the gym a little bit…that’s all I can say.” Speedy is coming, folks.

“Daddy Diggle” is the best thing I’ve heard today. Ramsey: “Does he stay with the team…or is he leaving?” Tensions heightening, stakes raised for character going forward.

John Barrowman has yet to read his scripts for what’s coming. Planning to read them in his hotel room tonight. “Can’t wait.” Clearly a huge fan and gets thrills from doing it.

Blackthorne is on the panel and he’s British, and has survived the finale. “This man has had the craziest police career.” Troof. He’s apparently the Captain in season 3. Compared to Jim Gordon. Will he be visiting the CSI’s in Central City? See below.

Episode 108 of Flash and 208 of Arrow will be a crossover event. “We’ll be seeing people from both shows crossing over.” Things that happen in Central City and Starling City will affect each other.

Who would they like to work on with Flash? Amell responds Jesse L. Martin…and not Robbie Amell hilariously. “I want to do a sandwich scene with both of them.” -Barrowman.

Felicity shows up in Central City in Flash 1×04.

Wanted to make big additions in season 3. Wanted to bring Ted Kord on the show, but apparently they have plans for him. Interesting. Got Superman instead, and apparently he has a hankering for Felicity. Insert love triangle here.

Felicity and Oliver’s first date: they go for Italian. “Weren’t trying to” fuck with people with the confessions and gonna address it. Apparently the date goes horribly (she probably ends up battered this night, because that’s how it works), however.

“It’s really cool to have the second nicest suit on the show now,” Amell jokes, in regards to Roy’s new red duds.

Merlyn is gonna want to see how much he can control Thea. Going to go for the emotional side, or at least that’s what Barrowman thinks.

Emily apparently provides the best Arrow voice impression.

Safe to say no Island this year, but we haven’t seen the last of it (because the show opens with Ollie on the island). Didn’t want to do this again: “Oh a new set of bad guys showed up on the island, how fortunate for our storytelling.” New opportunity to put in new characters, or play with characters we’ve seen.

Colin Donnell will appear in 3×02 as Tommy in some sort of flashback.

Will meet Katana this year.

Thea’s cover story for her disappearance is backpacking in Europe.

Apparently gonna be “worth the wait” when Roy and Thea see each other again. Yawn. Thea gets a haircut.

Diggle jokes that if he leaves Team Arrow, he’d go to the Suicide Squad. Diggle’s “heart is here,” and just as “invested as Oliver is.”

The secret identity stuff is the least interesting to them. Much more interesting when people know and have conversations about them. Agreed, though it’s still hilariously campy.

Apparently we’ll all be excited to see Laurel’s journey this season. Doubtful.

Unlikely pairings gonna happen? Always looking to put unique pairings together.

Favorite scenes of their compatriots? Blackthorne: I always fast forward when Barrowman’s on. Barrowman: Selfish with the railway scene when he’s shot. Holland: early season 1 scene with a Kardashian reference. Amell: last scene between Thea/Roy. Haynes: Upcoming scene in season 3, where Diggle gets pissed at Oliver that we saw in the trailer. Kreisberg: Everyone in the infamous Moira death episode.

Everyone misses Susanna, but thought it was her time to go.

Who are superheroes you’d like to see get shows, or appear on Arrow? DC Comics has been very supportive, work with Geoff Johns on Flash. Bringing Robbie Amell/Firestorm onboard. Happy with the characters we’re getting.

Stephen is asked to recite the intro. Impressive. He’s also pitting out, which makes me feel better about myself.

There’s a not-so-straight-Arrow joke following a Diggle/Ollie on deserted island, and it kills.

When asked if he can shoot an arrow that well? Amell isn’t modest: I’m really good. Of course I would win, in a contest with Katniss and Hawkeye. He can run up a wall and shoot an arrow in his target. So Arrow is real, folks.

We will see some Felicity flashbacks from her time at MIT. Know her backstory and her father. It’s not Anthony Ivo, which apparently was a rumor. The title of Felicity flashback episode is called ORACLE.

Everyone on the show is nerds/fans, and cue thanking the fans, because it’s a fan-driven show. Drink.

It’s the 7^th year of Warner Bros. and Comic-Con Preview Night. That means we get to see fall pilots months before they finally air, so we can talk shit or rave incessantly before most of y’all. This year’s lineup includes CW’s The Flash, NBC’s Constantine, Cartoon Network’s Teen Titans Go! and NOT CW’s iZombie, because of some casting changes. That certainly doesn’t bode well for the Rob Thomas show, but then again, they might be fixing the issue.

There are plenty of issues with CW’s The Flash, however, and I’m not sure they necessarily need fixing. This show really is Smallville redux, with the S.T.A.R. Labs particle accelerator mishap as the nexus/hellmouth/Nemeton/meteor rock generator for super powered (meta-humans, they call ‘em) heroes and villains. It’s also boundlessly cheesy, and not striving for the gritty Dark Knight world that Arrow drowns itself in every week. This is Flash, which is quirky, and will make you black out drunk if you drink for every fast/speed/running pun during the proceedings.

And let’s get to them, shall we? This episode hurtles you into the plot as fast as the fastest man alive, which would be Barry Allen. He was bullied when he was a kid (because of course; his glum comment to his parents made me gag: “I guess I wasn’t fast enough.”). His Dad, Henry Allen, calls him “slugger” for some reason, clearly wanting his son to win some of these fights (instead of hoping his son would avoid getting his ass kicked). Then, lickety split, 11 year old Barry wakes up, and finds violent red/yellow electricity orbiting his mother, Nora Allen. His Dad, or the Dad (John Wesley Shipp AKA Mitch from Dawson’s Creek AKA 1990’s Flash AKA why he’s on the show), joins Barry downstairs. Then Barry finds himself blocks away. When he returns, his mother is dead, his Dad is arrested as the killer, and Barry’s life officially kinda sucks.

Now an adult/or whatever Grant Gustin is, Barry has become a CSI for the Central City police force, and he’s always late (har har). Cliché Tough Guy detective (Person of Interest’s Al Sapienza) and Detective Joe West/replacement father figure find themselves at the scene of a bank robbery (where the Mardon brothers are at it again, those hoodlums). Barry arrives, Detective West (Law & Order’s Jesse L. Martin) covers for him, and Barry proves he’s worth the wait, using some residual Mentalist magic to figure out the make and model of the car based on its tire track, while also getting a poop sample, because all bank robberies involve excrement in some form (look it up).

The “poop problem” is soon (gratefully) solved, as he tracks the shite to one of four cow farms, letting him and Iris West (Candice Patton) AKA a woman who couldn’t Friend Zone him more, to go to S.T.A.R. Labs for the unveiling of the Particle Accelerator. Iris and Barry grew up together, she wants him to find someone, but she also sees them as almost like brother and sister. Because this is the CW and not HBO, that’s not going to be a turn on any time soon. Comic readers know that Iris West becomes Mrs. Barry Allen, but it’s clear that’s a long time coming (if ever; Danielle Panabaker’s Caitlin Snow is jockeying to be this show’s Felicity Smoak, and may very well succeed). His sexual frustration is only compounded because of the presence of Detective Pretty Boy (Rick Cosnett). I won’t even bother to look up his name (okay okay, it’s Eddie Thawne; not as good). Also, and this is the biggest stumbling block: I can’t say I liked Iris West in the slightest, as she seems doomed to follow in the footsteps of one Laurel Lance.

There’s just unintended hilarious moments littered throughout the episode. Iris and Barry are watching Dr. Harrison Wells (Ed and Scrubs’ Tom Kavanaugh) speech before he accidentally (?) unleashes the particle accelerator upon the unsuspecting Central City, when Iris gets her bag stolen. “It has my dissertation!” she cries (back it up in the cloud, grrl). Barry runs after him, and while he does catch up to the douche, he gets pummeled by the laptop bag in the process. Detective Pretty Boy is there, however, to save the day. Oof.

Elsewhere, West and Tough Guy Partner track down Clyde Mardon (Chad Rook) to a farm (good on Barry!), and soon, Clyde kills Tough Guy Partner, makes his escape (“I’ve got a plane to catch”), though that turns out badly when the particle accelerator explodes, shooting energy all over Central City. It blows up the plane, electrocutes Barry, and is what one would call the inciting incident/origin/hero is born moment.

Barry wakes up 9 months later (“lightning gave me abs?” is the best line in the pilot) to Lady Gaga’s “Pokerface” because guy-who-makes-toys-and-grins-more-than-the-Joker (or Cisco Ramon/the odd’s on favorite for my least favorite character) saw Barry liked her on Facebook. Whatever. It’s not long before Barry realizes the lightning gave him extraordinary power: he’s super fucking fast now, and I like that Harrison Wells, Caitlin Snow and Cisco (Carlos Valdes) all know about his gifts immediately (he does wake up in their lab, after all), as they test him in a goofy red suit that shows off Gustin’s nuts. While Barry’s learning curve is ridiculous, I suppose that makes sense given his power. Before too long, Cisco has Barry in the Flash suit, and before too long he’s fighting crime, after getting a pep talk from a certain emerald archer in Starling City (“the lightning chose you”), which made everyone in Ballroom 20 wet their pants. When both of them watch the other do their thing, they each say “Cool” in such a cheesy way that I walked out of the convention center with diabetes.

But who?! It’s clear that Barry isn’t the only one affected by the lightning storm. Nay: Clyde Mardon survived the plane explosion/crash landing/lightning bolt to the dome, and gets weather manipulation powers. Meet Weather Wizard (or “Fog Man” as I wrote in my notes), the first of Flash’s venerable Rogues (or more accurately, his brother). Hopefully it’s not a sign of things to come. Somehow, he’s even lamer than Storm. The actor is dreadful, blessed with a sneer born to be on a Most Wanted poster or mug shot, but not much else. He makes dumbass hand gestures whenever he summons “weather,” but does unfurl a pretty nifty tornado that he’s bringing directly to Century City, once he’s moved up from bank robbing.

I certainly like that The Flash is aiming to be lighter and goofier fare from Arrow, but some of the dialogue made me want to take the Flash’s lightning bolt logo and jam it in my ear drums. While they all represent traditional archetypes (and sometimes painfully so), the pilot successfully lays out tangible character dynamics and relationships, with clear paths for all of them to follow. I particularly want more Caitlin Snow, Harrison Wells and Daddy Allen. The speed effects don’t seem much different from Smallville, but they certainly have their moments, especially in the climactic scene (a Wells pep talk is all Barry needs to learn his powers). I’ll be intrigued how quick Flash delves into its Rogues Gallery and Barry’s Wall of Weird (they might as well call it that; Chloe 4 life), but the biggest hurdle has been achieved: Grant Gustin is charming, funny and bumbling. He’s like Peter Parker without the sarcastic quips. Hopefully Barry and The Flash stray away from milquetoast in its debut season.

GRADE: C+/B-

FLASH CARDS (Awesome Spoiler-y/Comic-book-y Moments):

-At S.T.A.R. Labs, there’s an animal cage broken out of, with a name tag: GRODD. Gorilla Grodd may actually not be too weird for this show, which is awesome. Apes really are taking over the planet, and if the CW can somehow cast Andy Serkis in the role, this show just won all the Emmy’s.

-The killer of Barry’s Mom is a man, wearing red and yellow. It’s pretty clearly Professor Zoom, or Barry Allen himself doing some crazy evil time travel.

-I love that Detective West finds out about Barry’s powers and is on his side from the start. It’s kind of funny that he goes from yelling at Barry to give up on his father’s innocence and his crazy theories, to believing EVERYTHING, because it’s not like Barry having powers means his father is innocent, necessarily. I also don’t like that he actually tells Barry not to tell Iris for her safety. Because lies and secrets keep people safe, as we’ve all learned.

-First there was Blur. Then there was the Hood. Now there’s…the Red Streak. I don’t think it’ll last long, since Ollie gifted Barry with the Flash nickname immediately. Thank Krishna.

-Barry and Dad have a tear-filled convo, complete with the hands against glass moment. Barry’s insistence that he believes his Dad’s innocent is all his father needs. I get that he appreciates his son’s loyalty, but WHAT?! Why is he so willing to just fester away in Iron Heights? Maybe he has his reasons…

-Harrison Wells is NOT a cripple, and clearly has some nefarious plans. Or definitely secrets. He brings up a newspaper from 2024 with the headline: “Flash vanishes, missing in crisis.” Not only is this a nod to THE Crisis of DC Comics fame, but it’s a mindfuck, and a cool glimpse of the future. CW is clearly pretty confident with the show if it’s projecting events ten years in the future. That said, I doubt this nugget doesn’t take 10 seasons to hit home.

Optional Music Accompaniment: The theme to the X-MEN animated series. On repeat. 

I’ve always been a man defined by his hobbies and obsessions, whether it be Ninja Turtles, baseball, Beanie Babies, Star Wars, fantasy sports, or TV. From 2000 to 2007, my Northstar was comic books, and I’d argue, was the most important hobby I ever had, irrevocably changing how I view pop culture and discovering what kind of stories and worlds and characters that I love.

I’m a devourer of superhero-related pop culture, someone whose calendar is dictated by big movie releases or TV premieres. My consumption of sci-fi, fantasy and comics has paralleled the incredible rise to prominence that these genres have imprinted on our culture. I like to think I had something to do with it all, because the timing is uncanny (sorry).

But without the original X-MEN, the superhero film that in many ways, started it all, we might never have seen a world where comic book heroes are the most popular characters in the world, where movie theaters are filled with the biggest characters from our youth, or the most eclectic. ANT-MAN is going to have his own movie, and that’s not weird. That’s exciting. The best filmmakers and actors in the world do some of their best work bringing to life characters that we grew up so urgently pretending they were real. Perhaps even without X-MEN, another movie would’ve sparked a superhero renaissance, an age when Captain America or Iron Man shares equal footing (or towers above) James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, Darth Vader and Indiana Jones. But maybe we’d still be waiting for AVENGERS. Or JUSTICE LEAGUE, because the punch line writes itself.

X-MEN’s success led to Sam Raimi getting his hands on SPIDER-MAN, and that paved the way for Christopher Nolan to reboot BATMAN, and for all of our movie going lives to change forever. It certainly mutated mine (oops).

If I hadn’t seen X-MEN, or if it hadn’t had a profound impact on me, I might not have been as invested in the incredible fantasy world that we geeks live in today. When the film came out in 2000, I had never read a comic book before. I was aware of them, having spent most of my money on MAGIC: THE GATHERING, POKEMON and baseball cards at Bigfoot’s Cards & Comics (now and forever closed ). I think I knew I’d like them, but I didn’t know if I was ready to fully commit to my nerd-dom, or admit to myself that that was the path I was going down. I was an extremely shy person back then, and not at all comfortable in my own skin, preferring to shield my personality from other people.

I was also a fairly accomplished baseball player at the time (but I was only 12, so that means nothing), and I’m not sure if I was able to reconcile the two worlds together. Being a LORD OF THE RINGS geek on your baseball team in 2000 was a hard sell, and I don’t think it’s an accident that my playing days became more frustrating, difficult and fewer and far between once I embraced comic books and the like. I wish I had juggled the two better (one of my bigger regrets), but I wasn’t very good at managing my obsessions.

When Bryan Singer, a director known for THE USUAL SUSPECTS, took on X-MEN, and brought it into theaters in 2000, I was more than familiar with the X-MEN. Like almost everyone in my generation, I had grown up on the awesome aforementioned cartoon. Jubilee was the worst, Cyclops was lame, the Phoenix Saga was fucking great, etc. I would’ve told you Wolverine was my favorite character (revel in his best quotes, though none top “JEEAANNNNNNN”), but I probably secretly believed Beast to be my fave, since he was the most Donatello-like of the mutant brigade.

Every summer, I’d go with my family to visit Granny in North Lake Tahoe. After a day spent on the beach (likely playing “amazing catches,” a forced childish version of ESPN’s Web Gems with a splash ball), we’d often play a round or two of miniature (don’t call it pee wee) golf at Magic Carpet Golf. While there were many highlights of the experience (including some shooting game that featured a terrifying cowboy/drunk that shot water and hollered at you), I was never satisfied until AFTER I got done in the Arcade Room. Why? Because they had the X-MEN Arcade Game. Magic Carpet was probably one of two places I’ve ever seen it, or played it (until very recently, it was still there; now my childhood is dead).

While I loved playing as Wolverine (in his spectacular brown and tan/yellow duds that need to make it on film) and Nightcrawler (also one of my faves; I wasn’t too creative in my choices), Colossus was the true breakout character of that game in my mind. I would play him the most, and would yell “Hyogen” to emulate the yell Piotr Rasputin makes when he explodes/whatever the fuck he does to destroy all competition. For awhile I think I just figured his name was Hyogen, and that became a talking point with my father for years (he’ll still say it). I shouted Hyogen around the house well after I should’ve stopped, and am still a little upset how awful my ears were, since my approximation of his yell left a lot to be desired in translation:

I like Hyogen better, but there’s a lot to be said for MAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUGH. Or maybe it’s WHOOOOOOOOREE. One of life’s greatest mysteries.

All of this was a long-winded, rambling way to say that I had been primed, and ready for the moment a young Erik Lehnnsherr mangled barb-wire fence at a Nazi internment camp to open X-MEN, and tearing down the barrier to comics and genre in my life forever.

I was thrilled to discover the absolute perfect Wolverine on screen, perhaps the best unknown casting of all-time. One of the biggest travesties of the constant missteps of the X-franchise after X2 has been wasting a willing, loyal and brilliant Hugh Jackman in his prime on a bunch of shitty movies. That, more than anything, is why we need X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST to be awesome, and why I’m totally fine that Wolverine’s role in the film is beefed up. There’s only so much longer that Hugh Jackman can do this, and like Robert Downey Jr. with Iron Man, I want to see as much of him as possible in the role that made us love him.

While Anna Paquin’s Rogue was annoying, I still loved Wolverine and Rogue’s relationship. Patrick Stewart. Ian McKellan. Most associate P-Stew with Captain Picard, or McKellan with Gandalf. This is likely heresy/wrong, but for me, they’ll always be Professor X and Magneto, as X-MEN was my first introduction to them as actors that stuck, and physical evidence that true love exists.

You could go on an on about what’s wrong with the X-MEN movies (Toad, Storm, Rogue, the bazillion plotholes and timeline inconsistencies), but it doesn’t matter. In 2000, when I saw X-MEN for the first time as a 12 year old, it changed my life.

X-MEN was my Gateway drug into comic books. The next week I was in Bigfoot’s, buying comics for the first time. Since that moment, I’ve listened to Joe Quesada or some other boner talk about how these movies try to get kids to read comic books countless times, and they always seem so desperate and laughable, but with X-MEN, the tactic worked.

While the first comic book character and series I fell in love with based on the merit of the character and the writing was GREEN ARROW, thanks to Kevin Smith and Phil Hester’s genius resurrection of Oliver Queen, they weren’t the first comics I ever read.

That would be X-MEN #110-113 and UNCANNY X-MEN #392-393, a unique and interesting period of X-Men comics that people would prefer to forget.

Somehow, Scott Lobdell’s “Eve of Destruction” arc didn’t ruin comic books for me forever. At the time, tt was seen as the last big crossover between the X-titles, while simultaneously being “filler” before Grant Morrison and Joe Casey (blergh) took over the flagship books for Marvel and revolutionized the mutants (one of them did). I honestly don’t remember Eve of Destruction in the slightest, except for their covers (and the brilliant song Lobdell was referencing), which is probably for the best. I do remember being kind of bummed out that Hyogen/Colossus had just died (sacrificing himself to save mutant kind from the Legacy Virus), right when I was started reading. Figures. Of course, years later, Joss Whedon would prove perhaps for the first time that he would always have my back, resurrecting my Arcade fave in ASTONISHING X-MEN.

Pretty soon, I was spending all of my allowance and savings on comic books, broadening out to AVENGERS, FANTASTIC FOUR, JUSTICE LEAGUE, and in a couple years, onto Vertigo titles like FABLES and Y: THE LAST MAN that really showed me the kind of diverse storytelling that could take place in a medium that I had always thought was devoted solely to masked heroes and villains.

When I was first delving in, I craved more. I wanted to talk about them, I wanted to pretend like I knew what I was talking about, and I wanted to meet other people like me. That’s when I found the Marvel message boards, and stumbled upon a world of role playing, constant threads filled with silly arguments debating your dream X-MEN team, or what mutant powers you wish you had, or who you’d want to fuck, along with various get to know you games with nerds of all shapes, sizes and ages. My moniker was DrDoom2099; to this day, I’ve never read a comic book with the 2099 version of Doctor Doom. Very soon, I had created my own message board called Comic Castle, that brought with it several iterations, a lot of wasted time, and a few long time members and friends.

One of whom was ShadowWolf214, or David Youngblood, a name you might recognize. He writes about owls and Red Pandas on this very site, and mind-bloggingly does so without any encouragement from me. 13-14 years after I first met him on the Marvel message boards and talked to him on AIM, I probably text David more than I do my Mom, Dad or best friends that I actually see on a consistent basis. David has been my nigh constant online companion ever since I learned to stop worrying and love the genre, and the bizarre, incredible, and life-giving worlds that that has opened up. In many ways, because he was so much older (it’s a one year difference, but it seemed/seems like a decade of difference when I was 12) and had been reading comics for longer, he kind of clued me in on what to read and what to shit on, until I was able to stand on my two feet in the comics community (I don’t know if I ever did). Whenever the other watches a new show, or movie, we’re likely the first to know about it, or receive a snarky comment. We practically have a symbiotic relationship when it comes to pop culture, and there are few people I trust more than him when it comes to recommendations.

It’s one of the weirder and cooler friendships and stories I’ve had the good fortune to stumble upon. I “met” David when I was 12 years old (though we both lied about our ages for at least a year or so), and we both stunningly turned out to be who we said we were, and kept in contact long enough to the point where it wasn’t weird when we finally met. I went to his wedding in August of 2012, finally meeting David and learning his disturbing predilection for chicken fingers in person for the first time. Here I was, the night before his wedding, crashing on his couch. It was surreal, kinda awkward, yet undeniably wonderful to be chatting about THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES and PROMETHEUS with David and his drunk friends during the most important days of his life.

It’s reassuring to have someone in your life that not only knows you and has your back, but loves all the same things you do. It’s creepy/insane how similar David and I are in our pop culture consumption. He will get all the jokes, all the references. And that all came, in part, because of Bryan Singer’s first X-MEN. Without seeing it, I would have 100% less dragon socks, Edward James Olmos t-shirts and people to talk Agent 355 with, things no one should live without.

Before I became comfortable waving around my hobbies, and personality for all to see (which came in senior year of high school and college), the Marvel message boards were the first lifeline to who I really was. Nowadays, I don’t care what other people think about the weird or girly or nerdy things I like (MARY POPPINS, DAWSON’S CREEK, etc.), and am in fact proud of it, since I never shut up about them.

But without the Marvel Messageboards, and discovering the internet as this bastion of reflection, discussion and access to knowledge and people I’d never be able to meet in Edmonds, WA when I was in middle school, I never would’ve made Comic Castle or discovered things that truly inspired me. I might never would’ve written about comics, movies and the things I love, and without that, I don’t know if I ever would’ve realized how much I like not just writing online, but writing in general.

You could make the argument that seeing X-MEN was the most impactful thing that happened to me in my childhood, aside from a non-serious car accident that happened to me when I was 15 that robbed me of my license for a year and inadvertently introduced me to DAWSON’S CREEK, or not making the baseball team my freshman year of High School. Oh, and being loved and raised by a pair of wonderful parents, I guess.

While X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST has the potential to be awful, and I’ve kind of held my expectations in check because of that, I’m optimistic. It’s actually snuck up on me how happy and ecstatic I am to see this crazy ballsy sequel/prequel/reboot/eraser fourteen years later, with Bryan Singer back in the saddle.

Maybe afterwards, I’ll find myself wandering right back into a comic shop, ready to restart the addiction. What’s Scott Lobdell doing these days?