The best there is at what he does...

It's been a while, but I haven't mentioned yet how great it is that you can now find movie trailers on Hulu. I finally bring it up now because it gives me a good excuse to embed the trailer for "X-Men Origins: Wolverine."

'X-Men' artist Dave Cockrum dies

Wow. I just read some very sad news. Dave Cockrum, one of the comic book artists who put “X-Men” on the map, passed away on Sunday.

Cockrum was 63 years old. He died at his home in South Carolina after a long battle with diabetes and related complications.

Cockrum worked on many books during his career at both Marvel and DC, but he’ll be best remembered for his stints penciling “X-Men” in the 1970s and early 80s.

“X-Men” had failed to find an audience when it was first published in the 1960s. It was on the verge of cancellation when Cockrum took over the book in 1975 with writer Len Wein and later Chris Claremont. The rest is comic book history as the book became one of the most popular titles in the industry.

I have very fond memories of Cockrum’s work from my comic book collecting youth. He created one of my favorite characters, Nightcrawler, and helped create or shape many of the other characters that would later be featured in the “X-Men” movies.

Cockrum, who served in the Navy during Vietnam, never saw a dime from the three X-Men movies.

"Dave saw the movie and he cried -- not because he was bitter," family friend Clifford Meth said. "He cried because his characters were on screen and they were living."

There is a nice tribute to Cockrum on the Marvel Comics site.

Mutant mayhem

I finally saw “X-Men: The Last Stand” tonight. Yeah, I know, the movie came out in May. I don’t get out as often as I used to.

Anyway, it was great. Never has a movie with so much negative advance buzz been so satisfying. I thought it captured the spirit of the comic books very well and it certainly left me wanting more.

Granted, I did think Juggernaut was pretty silly. He was the low point of the film. And the whole scene with the Golden Gate Bridge seemed a little excessive. But beyond that, it was great.

Also, I was pretty concerned that they were going to butcher the Dark Phoenix storyline—one of the greatest stories ever told in the pages of “The Uncanny X-Men” or any other comic book. But they took a pretty far-reaching and far out story and brought it “down to earth” in a very effective way for the movie.

So this one was clearly better than the first film. I think I’ll need to see it again before I can decide if it’s better than “X2: X-Men United.”

I’ll add this one to the must-own DVD list.

Look! Up in the sky!

Make sure to check out the new trailer for this summer's “Superman Returns.” It looks great!

Kevin Spacey makes a great Lex Luthor.

I'm really excited to see this movie. I've always been an X-Men fan, but I think Superman is going to blow “X-Men: The Last Stand” out of the water. Don't mess with the big red S!