Life presents an infinite number of questions, but perhaps none more provocative and poignant than “What if?”

What if I didn’t run that red light? What if I had gone to that concert with Cait freshman year? “What if?” scenarios can plague us, paralyze us and dull us into a ball of crippling self-doubt, afraid to make any decision lest it be the wrong one. These questions, less painfully, extend to the realm of movies. A Google search of “Movies Never Made” comes up with innumerable lists of films forever in development limbo, including a book by Chris Gore with that very same title and David Hughes’ Tales From Development Hell.

One of the very best films of last year concerned perhaps the Holy Grail of cinematic near-misses: Frank Pavich’s documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune. This year, following successful Kickstarter and FanBacked campaigns, Jon Schnepp puts the spotlight on the insanity that almost was: Superman Lives, a film to be directed by Tim Burton, starring Nicolas Cage as Superman, Chris Rock as Jimmy Olsen, Christopher Walken as Brainiac, Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor (some things are destiny) and written by three separate writers including the inimitable Kevin Smith.

Most of the narratives about the films nowadays are about how awful the Superman costume looked and how silly Nicolas Cage would’ve been in the role. The Death of Superman Lives presents a more complete picture of what the movie would’ve been, and I’d be surprised if anyone, fanboy or not, wouldn’t walk away wanting to see this movie, at least from a pure fascination standpoint.

It would’ve been weird, unique and original, something that seems antithetical to the very concept of Superman at this point. In fact, Superman Lives was such a different take on the iconic character that it wasn’t really a Superman movie, and considering the two reboots that followed, that might’ve been a good thing.

What the casual movie fan knows about the project comes from An Evening With Kevin Smith, where the writer-director talks about his unfathomable experiences working on the project and dealing with the larger than life and insane producer Jon Peters and his mind-boggling mandate to Smith to write a movie about Superman that features no flying, no suit and…a bunch of spiders.

For the first few segments, I was worried that Schnepp’s documentary would be rehashing the same story we’ve all heard before. And for too long, it does. But you can forgive the director because Kevin Smith is a natural storyteller, someone you’re happy telling the same story multiple times (insert Clerks 3 joke here). But he goes further and in more detail, and he admits that his experience on Superman Lives was a turning point in his career, where he learned that he was better at talking about writing Superman than writing Superman. Smith is oftentimes painfully self-aware of his limitations, and I think his fans (like yours truly) wish he weren’t, and certainly have a bevy of “What-If’s?” to direct his way.

Indisputably, Smith is a great jumping-off point into the expanded and crazy world that features interviews with Jon Peters himself, Tim Burton, and a slew of the artists and producers formerly attached to the project.

I was struck by how miserable Burton still is about the experience, referencing the need for cyanide pills when discussing the subject, and that on his death bed, he’ll still be talking about this movie that almost was. In many ways, it’s fair to wonder what this movie’s failure did to Burton’s career. He’s certainly had successes after (Sweeney Todd and Big Fish), but he’s almost become a parody of himself at this point.

While Cage declined to interview for the film, his presence is all over the doc, given a treasure trove of archival footage that might change your preconceived notion of the actor as Kal-El. We learn that the infamous shiny, rainbow light-up suit wasn’t the suit, and he damn if he doesn’t pull off the main one designed by Colleen Atwood.

After the film, Kevin Smith noted that when approached, he responded: “I’m going to be the star of this motherfucker.” But he rightfully admits, that honor goes to the larger than life Peters, who is gleefully, “exactly as I described him.” Peters, the man who (still) holds the film rights to Superman, is a self-pronounced man from the streets who blusters about having been in 500 fights, known for putting members of his crews in choke-holds…for “morale.” He seems like a joke, a figment of Hollywood imagination (a hairdresser turned Mr. Barbra Streisand turned La-La Land royalty), but he’s all too real, enthralling, and unintentionally hilarious.

He’s also not completely stupid. What he had in mind for Superman Lives is the kind of world-building that Kevin Feige is lauded for today. Smith’s script featured Deadshot, a reference to Hawkman and a Batman cameo during Superman’s funeral (it was an adaptation of The Death of Superman, after all). Brainiac became a green-headed Grim Reaper with spider legs, piloting a Skull ship. It’s certainly not Brainiac, but God help me, he looks cool. Of course, the notion of Luthiac, a two-headed mind-meld of Lex Luthor and Brainiac probably couldn’t have been anything but awful, but who doesn’t want to see Kevin Spacey and Christopher Walken (or Howard Stern or Jim Carrey, two others wanted for the part) bicker on the same body?

What struck me the most was the wonderful, jaw-dropping concert art, full of awesome Moebius and H.R. Giger-like monsters [the above isn’t one of the best ones; the good shit is in the documentary]. Apparently that’s a death knell for all movies not named Alien, considering Jodorowsky’s Dune suffered the same fate (and they actually had Moebius and H.R. Giger). The film would’ve been an ode to practical FX, with Doomsday very much a kaiju influenced terror, nearly twenty years before Guillermo del Toro made the Japanese concept a par the national lexicon with Pacific Rim.

The documentary bounces around writers, giving equal thrift to Wesley Strick (given Jon Peters’ obsession with spiders, his Arachnophobia experience likely helped him land the gig) and Dan Gilroy (Nightcrawler, Bourne Legacy). When a guy as smart and talented as Dan Gilroy is gushing about Burton’s take on Superman, you can’t help but stop and wonder: Huh?

The film failed for a lot of reasons, but the biggest, as always, was likely financial: Warner Bros. was flailing. Following the disaster that was Batman and Robin and a slew of other big budget blockbuster flops (The Postman, Soldier and The Avengers, to name a few), WB pulled the plug on the massively budgeted Superman Lives. As Burton says, Joel Schumaker not only destroyed his Bat-franchise, but his chance at creating another. The hilarious irony is that the money from Superman Lives went directly into…Wild Wild West, one of the biggest bombs ever.

The movie, like my review, ran long, but it was chock full of details, and a myriad of creative animated flourishes and quirky low-budget recreation scenes. I think all that matters for a movie like this, is that afterwards, I really really wanted this movie to exist. Superman Lives is not only a tremendous answer to a gripping “What if?,” but it presents a sprawling, spider-webbing slew of additional What-If’s about the careers of Tim Burton, Nicolas Cage and Kevin Smith, a metaphor Jon Peters would surely approve of.

Afterwards, writer-director Jon Schnepp, joined by Kevin Smith and a slew of crewmates, came to the stage for an enlivened, talkative and endlessly entertaining Q&A. It also presented potentially a more captivating “What If?” than the movie itself, or at least, one that the movie only scratched the surface of. One which I’ll get back to after these regularly scheduled bullet points:

• Apparently Robert Rodriguez was attached to Superman Lives, and talked about the movie with Kevin Smith. He also talked the director off the ledge while directing Dogma.
• Nobody was ever attached to Lois Lane (and the movie was 3-4 weeks from production!), but Peters wanted Sandra Bullock. Julianne Moore was also mentioned.
• Kevin Smith’s script, which is online, isn’t good, Smith admits. He describes it as self-referential fan-fiction, featuring Kryptonians named Dan-Te and Rand-El (which should sound familiar to Clerks fans). He was a slacker: the idea of the job was better than actually having it. He half-assed his script.
• Schnepp managed to get Jon Peters a MONTH before this premiere, which is crazy from a filmmaking perspective and a testament to the editing team. And it was surely necessary, because Peters’ presence is what ties it all together.
• Schnepp and his fiancé were broke when they finally got Burton to agree to meet. They had to get to England, and to do so, he had to sell his comics collection. This made Smith beam proudly, as he had to do the same. At least he had a chick to fuck through it all, Smith joked.
• The documentary was “just the tip of the iceberg” when it came to the footage and art from Superman Lives all found in Burton’s lair, which sounds like it needs to be a documentary all on its own.
• Chris Rock was too busy to appear, but he wanted to.
• When are we getting Kevin Smith’s superhero movie? Smith seems too aware of his limitations, and says that he “can’t do that,” that it’s “not in his skill set” and that he’s “not that interested.” But Yoga Hosers, his next movie,is “technically a comic book movie,” the closest we’re likely to get. Smith describes the film, which stars his daughter and Johnny Depp’s daughter, as Clueless meets Gremlins, with a Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark influence. Smith plays one of the villains in prosthetics.
• Mallrats 2: 16 of the 18 returning cast members have signed on for the sequel. One of them is on the cusp of signing. The other is Ben Affleck, which might be more difficult given his Bat-schedule, but he wrote a very do-able part for him.
• When Schnepp said that Rob Liefeld was apparently approached to make a graphic novel of Superman Lives., a collective groan emanated throughout the Egyptian Theatre.  Schnepp liked the idea of an animated trilogy, with a movie version of each script. *nods* THAT, please.
• Schnepp’s next project is a horror-musical-comedy project with a Bollywood flavor and Rocky Horror Picture Show in its DNA. As Smith said, “I’m hard.”
• Smith loved the film, calling feisty, fun and foul-mouthed Schnepp his “dream son,” that he went out and made his movie by sheer force of will, much like he did with Clerks. He urged everyone to follow their dreams, marveling and geeking out at how Schnepp managed to talk with Tim Burton. We were witnessing a poignant parallel of the indie filmmaker journey, and how it’s changed over the past 25 years. But even with the benefit of Kickstarter, it’s clear that Schnepp had to scratch and claw to make this film happen.

But now, back to my mind being blown:

While working on Superman Lives, Kevin Smith met with president of Warner Bros. production Lorenzo di Bonaventura. During their dinner, Lorenzo offered Kevin Smith the keys to the DC Universe, the ability to play with the studios’ entire properties, twenty years before Marvel launched the MCU with Iron Man. Smith, painfully young, thought that it would steal his indie soul, and points out that he was “not Joss Whedon.” After this story I almost slammed my head into the back of the movie seat in front of me.

Perhaps Kevin Smith wasn’t the right man to shepherd the DC Universe to film (he certainly doesn’t think he would’ve been), but like with Superman Lives, it would’ve been fascinating to see. Again, what if? What if Superman Lives had been made? As Schnepp explained, in 1997, Marvel was bankrupt. DC was considering buying their company, while on the cusp of making a team-up movie that included Superman, Batman and droves of other DC characters. Might Superman Lives have ushered in the DCCU a decade before Marvel discovered the secret to success? Or would it have been a Batman and Robin style disaster that might’ve pushed it all back even longer, or prevented Iron Man from ever happening? Would we be talking about DC and WB in the same way we talk about Marvel now and in their stead? It’s crazy and tantalizing to think about, and one of the many reasons why The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened? is such a worthwhile story.

As Carrey’s Riddler said in Batman Forever, “too many questions.”

The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened? arrives digitally July 9th. The Blu-Ray will feature a boatload of features, including more on Superman’s resuscitation suit, nerdy Kevin Smith chats, and an extra three to four hours of various footage and featurettes. Jon Schepp is self-releasing the project, and it’s worthy of your support.

Kevin Smith and the elementary school bus taught me how to swear.

I was twelve years old when I stumbled upon a Red Band trailer for Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back online, and guffawed like an idiot at all the dick and fart jokes, pretending like I knew what half of the sex talk meant. I immediately researched Kevin Smith, and watched all of his movies in quick succession. While American Pie was the first R-rated movie with tits and sex talk in it that I watched, Kevin Smith’s films were the ones that changed my life.

While I’m probably guilty of some revisionist history, I credit X-Men with getting me into comic books and informing the nerdy pop-culture consumer that I am today. But, if it weren’t for Kevin Smith’s jaw-dropping and incredible “Quiver” arc on Green Arrow, a book I never would’ve got if not for knowing him from his movies, I might never have stuck with comic books, potentially robbing me of discovering some of the most essential facets of my personality and life.

I loved Clerks., even though almost all of the adult humor was over my head. Chasing Amy was boring and uncomfortable to me, until I watched it ten years later and it blew my mind. Mallrats may have made me laugh the most of all of his movies. Dogma only got better every time I watched it. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is probably my favorite film to rewatch and quote. I really love Clerks 2, as it’s the only movie of his I watched at the correct age, and the emotional impact came in waves because of it. 

Each film I’ve anointed as Kevin Smith’s best at various portions of my life, as View Askew universe became the first film universe that I became obsessed with, before Marvel’s Cinematic Universe overshadowed everything else. Kevin Smith’s observations on life, Star Wars and his realistic dialogue spoke to me as a geek and a teen who didn’t know what the hell was going on, but loved jokes revolving around pussy, and people talking about pussy, before I was even close to sniffing some myself (pardon that image). In many ways, Kevin Smith’s movies replaced talking about girls with anyone, be it my friends or family or cool Uncle, as I wasn’t comfortable talking about them with anyone until I was well in high school. This likely explains a lot.

Kevin Smith’s unapologetic, uncensored brand of humor influenced my own. I wanted to talk like I didn’t give a shit, I wanted to swear, while also interspersing a morsel of truth and wisdom. I hate all the BS that comes out of people’s mouths. Smith’s characters spoke the truth, and their mind, no matter how idiotic.

Kevin Smith introduced me to dick jokes and to comic books, and that’s why some small part of me has never recovered from the Jersey Girl and Cop Out stage of Kevin Smith’s filmmaking career. Of course, until recently, neither had Kevin Smith.

Which is why I was so revitalized and delighted to see one of my heroes inspired again. At his annual Hall H panel, Kevin Smith regaled us all with stories (he’s one of the best storytellers we have; not many can be as hilarious with a mic in his hand) from his career and life, telling us all the gruesome details (I feel like I’ve heard about every sexual experience he’s ever had). He got me more jazzed for J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: Episode VII than I thought I would ever be. Yes, Smith has a tendency to over-hype things (Affleck’s Batman suit), but he knows Star Wars, and the amount of joy he had at visiting the set speaks to how well Abrams has done in crafting the Star Wars universe, and I trust Kevin Smith’s opinion. He cried when he stepped on the deck of the Millenium Falcon, and became a kid again, and it seems like that foul-mouthed, enthusiastic kid is still inside Kevin Smith, and is ready to bring that brand back into cinemas.

He quit movies for awhile, disillusioned by the business, until stumbling upon the story of Tusk on his Smodcast. He was literally writing and creating the weird horror movie on air, as the creative process consumed him and Scott Mosher. Smith realized he needed to write and make this movie, and that all he needed was to make the small indie films that he made his name with again to be happy. The result is Tusk, a film that stars Michael Parks, Justin Long, Haley Joel Osment and Genesis Rodriguez, and according to Smith, is a super weird movie, but also the best one he’s ever done.

Smith’s already planning a True North trilogy of horror movies, which kicks off with Tusk, follows with a PG-13 movie called Yoga Hosers (with a female lead who kicks ass, something he’s wanted to do since having a daughter) and finishes with something called Moose Jaws. The latter is exactly what it sounds (Jaws with a moose), and had me giggling for hours after. I can’t say I wouldn’t rather see Smith do comedies, but I’m also intensely interested in this burgeoning micro-budget horror phase of his, precisely because he’s so absorbed and excited about it, and his enthusiasm is as infectious as a stink palm. Red State wasn’t bad, and a world where Kevin Smith is making horror movies involving walri and meese is a far better world than one without those things. Welcome back, Kevin Smith.

Toward the end of this rejuvenating evening with Kevin Smith, he unveiled the first trailer for Tusk (see below), coming September 19th. I’ll be there.

The reason I know film is important, and worth dedicating my life to watching, writing, or making film, are for movies like BOYHOOD. Almost every movie I see (especially in theaters, a setting that remains the closest thing I have to Church) makes me feel something, or inspires me in some way, or has a scene or a line, that for a moment helps the world make sense. Films connect people, and BOYHOOD has an unsurpassed ability to do so, thanks to its brilliant construction and the unwavering vision and dedication by writer-director Richard Linklater, actors Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Lorelei Linklater and the rest of the cast and crew.

Richard Linklater, alongside Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith, is the poster boy for the early 90’s independent filmmakers that burst onto the scene thanks to the eruption/mainstreaming of Sundance and their rebellious, profane and off-kilter attitude toward society and our precarious place in it.

There are very few filmmakers who have such a distinct style, flair and emotional motif in their work that are instantly recognizable. Richard Linklater is one such auteur. Linklater has a varied and robust resume, but his films almost always present painfully authentic characters existing in a precise snapshot in time, over a 24 hour period, or over a lifetime/romance in the case of the BEFORE trilogy with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. SLACKER, the film that put Linklater on the map, was a film that depicted a day in the life of shiftless 20-something’s in Austin. DAZED AND CONFUSED adopted the same tact with high school students in the 1970’s. Linklater has dedicated his career to exploring the maxims of the coming of age genre, to subverting it and relishing the fact that no matter where we’re from, when we’re from or how old we are, we’re all perpetually coming of age. We’re all looking for meaning and direction in a world that lacks it. Growing up doesn’t have a universal scale, or barometer, and never stops. With BOYHOOD, Richard Linklater launched an experiment to explore all of these themes but on a grander and larger scale, by capturing one boy’s upbringing. Over twelve years, Linklater and his crew captured moments from Ellar Coltrane’s life, a boy cast for the role of Mason when he was just six years old. They would interrupt his life, and the life of the rest of the cast and crew, once a year until Ellar was 18, in a process that became more collaborative as Ellar grew older. In so doing, Richard also captured his own growth as a filmmaker, and the evolution of a mother, father, son, sister and their relationships with one another, pop culture and politics.

Over these twelve years, we basically see it all. Mason’s first kiss. First beer. First joint. First love. Step dads. Switching schools. Moving away from friends. Sibling fights. A grudging sibling respect. High school graduation. College. In many ways, BOYHOOD unfolds like a checklist of life events, as if Linklater wanted Mason and his family to experience everything. It’s emotionally exhausting and certainly overwrought, yet because the movie feels so big (yet always intimate), it works in making the film universal. Every year, or every moment, will ring true to someone in the audience. In most cases, it’s going to ring true to everyone in the audience.

Thanks to its unique narrative, BOYHOOD is an oftentimes hilarious snapshot of pop culture, be it Samantha annoying her brother by singing “Oops I Did It Again,” or Olivia reading HARRY POTTER aloud to their children, or some good old-fashioned Houston Astros era Roger Clemens worship, or a campfire discussion about another STAR WARS movie and how that would never happen.

While the film is called BOYHOOD and every jump in time revolves around Mason, it’s far more than that. This family journey is about Motherhood, Fatherhood, Parenthood, Adolescence, Adulthood and growing up and growing apart, and not just for the kids embroiled in the narrative.

We all know Mason Sr. (a transcendent Ethan Hawke) the moment we see him, a father who had the misfortune of having a child when he was still a child himself. He lives in a grungy apartment with his slob roommate, still clinging to the dreams of rock ‘n roll and sticking it to the Man. He loves his children and wants to be a part of their lives, but not to the detriment of his own. His transformation from “cool” Dad who’s never there to probably what Mom wanted him to be, just 20 years too late, is a familiar one, but no less gripping.

Olivia is a single Mom struggling to make ends meet, but the inciting incident for the entire movie comes when she decides to uproot the family to Houston, where she can go to college, and the kids can be closer to their Grandmother. Over the course of the family’s odyssey, Olivia makes so many mistakes, particularly with the men she allows into her children’s lives (“a parade of drunk assholes”), but we never stop understanding, or feeling for her struggle for a career and autonomy.

We’ve seen versions of all these characters, or moments, or archetypes before, and there’s something familiar and cliche about BOYHOOD, but the film cuts deeper than that, and transcends it, truly exploring why these societal roles exist, and why they’re brought to life on screen over and over again. This isn’t an easy film, it’s uncomfortable and entirely too real.

There are many moments when an adult, be it Mason’s Mom, Dad, Step-Dad, Professor or “Role Model,” attempt to impart some sort of arbitrary wisdom onto Mason. But it’s clear that it’s all bullshit, advice that is well-meant (or otherwise) that really hold no truth. Richard Linklater doesn’t have the answers, and neither does your photography teacher, but we should never cease trying to search them out, and never stop listening to what other people have to say. Perhaps because of this, or in spite of the parade of BS he encounters, Mason grows up to be an inquisitive and thoughtful young man, almost tortured by the lack of meaning in the universe. He’s an existential, thoughtful kid who lives in his head, and can’t live in the moment.

Of course, that’s nothing shrooms and college can’t cure. BOYHOOD captures the feeling of helplessness and the meaningless of the universe, while also being overwhelmingly optimistic and hopeful. BOYHOOD is an unflinching and genuine portrait of life, and an absolute treasure to experience.

There’s an incredible scene, in a sea of them, where Mason asks his father if there is magic in the world, a question every kid wonders about, whether they grew up reading HARRY POTTER or not. His Dad, for once, has a perfect answer, describing the existence of whales in such a way that sounds magical, proving that language, perspective and nature is magic, and that’s before considering the myriad of whale metaphors in literature. While magic doesn’t exist in the way an 8 year old boy wants it to, there is magic to discover in this world. Some of that magic can be found in BOYHOOD, Richard Linklater’s most profound and exciting achievement in a career full of them.

BOYHOOD is one of those movies that will make you call your Mom and Dad after, in tears. It’s one of those movies that you’ll want to tell everyone about immediately afterward, while also not wanting to tell anybody, because it’s special to you. It’s every movie…but unlike any other movie ever made.

BOYHOOD opens in New York and Los Angeles on Friday July 11th. Find out when it’s coming to a theatre near you HERE. For more information on BOYHOOD, check out the film’s website.

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?