Retro Heroes!

If there's one quirk of the superhero genre I love, it's period superheroes.  Two of my guilty pleasures are the Shadow and the Rocketeer, and a lot of that has to do with their late-1930s settings.  The Watchmen movie tried hard to be set in the 1980s, but it's 80s-ness never really came through for me.

So it's kind of neat that we have two Marvel Comics movies in production right now that will be set in times past.

First up, Captain America.  We've been promised that it's a full-blown, World War II epic, with Cap fighting Nazis and the Red Skull in the European theatre.

And we got our first picture of Captain America in action today!  I love these spy photos from the set...we don't get enough of these anymore.

Now that we see these pictures, I can see that it really is influenced by the Ultimate Captain America costume.

Oh, and the spy was quick to point out that this is NOT Chris Evans, who's playing Steve Rogers, but his stunt double.

We have another spy photo from Captain America, too.  Here's Cap being pursued by two HYDRA agents. 

In case I haven't said it yet, Captain America is being directed by Joe Johnston, who did Jurassic Park 3, October Sky, and...The Rocketeer!  His most recent film was that remake of The Wolfman. 

It's due to come out next July.

And as I said, that's not the only retro superhero film that Marvel's working on.  Also filming right now is the X-Men prequel tale, X-Men: First Class, which details the founding of Charles Xavier's School for the Gifted, and Xaiver's falling out with Magneto. 

In order to keep with prequel aspects, the entire thing is set in the 1960s!

The villains in this particular tale are the secret society known as the Hellfire Club, and here's our first look at January Jones as Emma Frost.

Looks like a very 1960s-appropriate costume for Ms. Frost.

Rounding out the cast are James McAvoy plays the young Professor X, Michael Fassbender plays the young Magneto, and Kevin Bacon plays Sebastian Shaw, the leader of the Hellfire Club.  Matthew Vaughn (Stardust, Kick-Ass) is directing, and Bryan Singer, director of the first two X-Men films, is back on board as a producer.

It's due out next June.