One of the things I've been hoping to do with the Geek Beat for some time is to use it to interview the hardworking men and women of the geek world ... because come on, who wants to listen to me blather solo until the end of time? Wouldn't it be cool to hear from people actually creating the things I rant about? Yeah, I thought so too.

Finally, the stars aligned, and I managed to connect with someone whose work I've admired for some time: Justin Gray. You know Gray from his solo work on Legends of the Dark Knight, MA Fantastic Four, and numerous titles with Moonstone Books. You also know him from his work with Jimmy Palmiotti, as they've been behind such cool titles as Jonah Hex, Heroes For Hire, Friday the 13th, 21 Down, and Hawkman, plus the Ghost Rider and Punisher video games. Check out their official site for more info, and buy up anything with their names on it to keep those single issue sales up and thriving.

Now, enough of me! You see enough of me every week. Let's just jump right in with Justin, who graciously answered my questions about Jonah Hex, the comic industry, Hollywood's newfound love affair with it, and just what it's like to be a successful writer. The interview is after the jump, and I really hope you enjoy it.

20 years ago on this very day, Tim Burton's Batman was released into theaters. Think back, stretch your creaking bones, and let's go on a trip down memory lane.

I was all of seven years old when Batman came out (I know, a lady never reveals her age, but when have I ever acted like a lady?), which means I have only vague recollections of the pre-release period. I remember we were buzzing about it at my school, and that it was looming on our radar long before we were out for the summer. But while I remember that shadowy poster of the Bat symbol decorating my multiplex, I can't recall the casting of Michael Keaton, the eager whispers of Jack Nicholson and his hidden make-up, or the trailers. Event movies were so different in my childhood. They just seemed to happen overnight, and were probably the better for it. Movies will always be magical to me, but I really long for those days before the Internet and its marketing mania. (Yes, I realize the irony inherent in my saying that, but at least I make it fun, right? No, don't answer that.)

Because I was all of seven, and thus too young for Frank Miller, my exposure to Batman was purely through Adam West reruns. I knew Gotham City as a place of goofy villains and BAM! and POW!, so to say that Burton's version terrified me was an understatement. I don't remember what I went in expecting (I know it wasn't Adam West), but I do remember being absolutely horrified by Nicholson's Joker. Maybe I was still reeling from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? the year before, but his acid-soaked origin left me faintly ill, as was every shot of him sans whiteface and lipstick.

Hey geeks, did you hear? The reason this summer's films are rather sucky is because of us. At least, that's the suggestion put forth by The Guardian in their Terminator: Salvation bashing. In fact, their David Cox is hinting that our insatiable need for explosions, CG, and superheroes has stripped science-fiction of all its fresh, thought-provoking ideas.

How quickly the glories and gains of 2008 are forgotten, eh? One year, everyone is marveling at the treasure trove of solid filmmaking that Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse can inspire. They're coming out of the closet, fighting to be called a geek, and hailing The Dark Knight as something that made the lame walk and the blind see. But popularity is fickle. Now we're popcorn munching mouth-breathers who live with our parents, and dumb down cinema. If only we didn't exist, the world would have thought-provoking science fiction. The "others" that Cox is referring to would be gorging their intellects, whereas we would be playing video games and Dungeons and Dragons.

Now, as someone who writes under the geek banner every week, I'm forced into raising my hackles at what is really just sloppy generalization and name-calling. But it is a problematic backlash, and one that I've noticed gaining steam since X-Men Origins: Wolverine. We're to blame for hollow summer movies because we like Star Trek, guys named Logan, and Terminator flicks. If we didn't ask for the easily merchandized and digested, and get on the Internet to talk about them, bad movies wouldn't happen. Well, I hate to break it to you cultural watchdogs ... but you can't pin this one on us. You have failed to realize one thing ... we hated these movies more than you did.

So this is how May ends -- not with a bang, but a whimper.

It's a tough week to write the Beat. If you're very attentive to my publishing schedule (and I forgive you if you aren't), you might have noticed that last week came and went without an installment. The day you normally find me slaving over a computer for your reading pleasure found me instead avoiding snakes, spiders, and other such swampy critters on the set of Jonah Hex. Of course, I can't say anything more about that. But now you can thank the Powers That Be that nothing poisonous bit me (and oh, how it was a possibility -- if you follow my Twitter, you know exactly what I'm talking about) so that you can hear about it someday.

I mention all that not to brag, but because it's connected to the only two things I can really write about this week. For the first time in my short career, I now find myself in the awkward position that lies between fandom and professionalism. When you read my rantings about Star Trek, Wolverine, comic conventions, Marvel movies, and collectibles, they come purely from my heart. (How mushy!) I still pay to get into every movie I write about. I buy my own action figures, posters and comic books. I receive no swag. No perks. Just some beer money from Cinematical and the comments of my readers. But it's difficult to convince people of that. For one, I'm already in a weird and privileged position of being paid for doing what others happily do for free, and that immediately makes the playing ground uneven and awkward. But now I'm moving into a whole new territory of access. I know that it makes me immediately suspect -- I know this because I immediately suspect anyone who has enjoyed free access, perks and junkets. It's a painful thing to realize that people might stop believing or trusting in me because I'm given a nebulous access.

This week's column was a bit of a struggle. I knew it had to be on Star Trek , and I knew I had to overcome my misgivings and half-hearted enthusiasm to do my job. The excitement and buzz coming off the Internet was pretty infectious and by Friday afternoon, I was getting impatient to see it ... which of course meant that every effort I made to get to the theater was thwarted. It was also Mother's Day weekend and it's not exactly fair to drag your mom to a movie she doesn't want to see -- and boy, she did not want to see Star Trek. No amount of enthusiasm could convince her it was worth her time, and I was surprised when she abruptly decided to accompany me to the theater yesterday. Though she sat there muttering about continuity errors, she truly enjoyed it. As much as I liked the film, the viewing experience was ten times more fun because I discovered just how hardcore of a Trekker my mom was. (She actually folded her arms at one point and whispered "Boo, hiss! That's not how it happened!" Now I know what I looked like during X-Men Origins: Wolverine.)

So, I thought it would be far more interesting if I just recorded another chat with her in order to capture all those intense thoughts of an old-school Trekker, particularly since you've gotten to know her rather well over the last year. As always, she was reluctant, but get her going and ... well, like mother, like daughter. Enjoy!

This is an awkward week, as I was fully expecting to write an X-Men Origins: Wolverine piece today. But sometimes you need to jump the gun, and I wrote up my berserker "review" for Friday instead. So now it's time to just take a deep breath and think out loud about the meaning of it all.

Perhaps it's a sign that I'm still relatively new to this crazy world of Internet movie news, but I don't think I've seen so much anger and annoyance surrounding a "geek" film as I have in these days post-Wolverine. (I'm sure there must have been similar feelings for Daredevil or Hulk, though.) The emotions were high around Watchmen, but I think a lot of minds were made up before they even sat down in the theater, so their emotions were slightly blunted. I may have passed out and missed the operatic height of it, though ... the Watchmen week was a really really long one!

I'm not even sure why Wolverine left me so furious. Scott Weinberg teased me about it in the wee hours of Thursday morning, pointing out that I acted as though I'd never been disappointed by a film before. It was true -- and I'm not going to pretend that Wolverine means more to me than Indiana Jones, the Skywalker clan, Batman, or any other character who's been given a lousy follow-up. Nor is it the fact that I become "attached" to movie productions from their very early stages of development. In fact, Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool casting was the second piece I ever wrote up for Cinematical (one of those facts that will stick in my brain far longer than it should), and I blogged nonstop about it for months. You know. You were here! But I write about a lot of movies and if I don't like them, I shrug them off and wish I had my money back.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is not a Wolverine film.

I don't care what's in the title. I don't care that the hero sports muttonchops and adamantium claws. He isn't Wolverine. Any resemblance he has to the Marvel character or the snarling beast Hugh Jackman played in X-Men 1, 2, and 3 is entirely coincidental.

It really hurts to say that. I love this character, and I know Jackman loves the character. I know he loves the fans, and he wants us to be happy with his work. He has gone on record as saying this is the Wolverine film he always saw in his head. But did he really see something so clunky and milquetoast as this?

Logan is a man constantly at war with himself. His gruff exterior hides a man who can be gentle, who enjoys the beauty of the Canadian Rockies and the simplicity of a Japanese tea ceremony. But he also possesses the animal senses and brute force that makes him willing to kill if threatened. He doesn't enjoy killing, he's often haunted by the blood he's shed, but it's his grim destiny.

He's also a guy who has been truly dealt a crappy hand. Everything he loves is taken from him. He's been betrayed and tortured, and he's lost his mind on more than one occasion. But he deals with it by fighting the good fight, and indulging in a cold beer if he's got a chance. None of this makes him particularly complicated for adapting to the big screen. If anything, he's been done a million times before. He's Charles Bronson, he's the Man with No Name, he's Martin Riggs, Harry Callahan, and Bud White.

You'll probably be getting a one-two punch of Wolverine this week and next, and I apologize -- but big popcorn flicks deserve a lot of digital ink, especially if they're kicking off the summer season. Plus, this is the solo adventure of my favorite superhero. Avoiding the topic is impossible.

Over the past year, I have shared a lot of opinions of what I wanted X-Men Origins: Wolverine to be, or where I hoped they would take the character, or issues I had with their portrayal of the Weapon X program. But you know what I really wish? I wish Wolverine could have remained mysterious.

Hugh Jackman has argued that he wasn't comfortable taking the character anywhere like Japan without first showing who Logan was, and where he had come from. But what kept Wolverine as such an enduring character (besides his gratuitous body count) was his shadowy origin. It was a big deal when he revealed his name was Logan. The way such information was handled was brilliant and brusque. When asked why he hadn't ever told anyone his name, he shrugged. "You never asked." He just appeared on the scene, a snarling badass. He was Marvel's Man with No Name. Fans loved it. We lived for the teases, flashbacks, and guessworks.