New Photos and Video Reveal that the Future Was Fab in Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men First Class

20th Century Fox is not standing idly by while Marvel and DC grab the superhero limelight. Many consider the 2011 summer movie season to have kicked off with Thor, but competent as that film was, many are also hoping that Captain America: The First Avenger and Green Lantern may be even better. While there’s no way to gauge that presumption at this point, Fox is showing us ever more ‘mod’ images from X-Men: First Class—and it looks to be a stunner, certainly in aesthetics and tone, if not in story (though preliminary sneak peeks have us excited about that, too).
Though director Matthew Vaughn’s film may not offer continuity with the ‘X-Men’ films that came before, or indeed, even the property’s canon, at the end of the day, it might not matter. The film will either stand on its own, or it won’t.
And so far, early speculation is that it will…and then some. Meanwhile, a host of new photos, along with two new TV spots, have debuted online, including January Jones (Mad Men) in the familiar white bra top Hellfire Club member Emma Frost used to wear in the comics.
In our opinion Vaughn is to be commended for including touchstones from the comic, including the traditional blue and yellow outfits that Bryan Singer ditched in the original X-Men.
What Vaughn has wrought reminds us in some respects of a retro-modernistic redux of TV producer Gerry Anderson’s Fab Future, as characterized in his ’60s and ’70s Supermarionation series, and live action skeins like U.F.O. and Space 1999. The Hellfire Club’s submarine and its crew, in particular, feel like an updated take on U.F.O.‘s Skydiver 1 and its crew.
You can check out several of the images below, and also head over to CBM to see the entire collection of all 40 images, including the X-Jet and the Hellfire Club’s submarine.
In addition, two new TV spots have debuted, which you can also check out using the embedded players below.
X-Men: First Class arrives in theaters on June 3.