Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  This week, Bennett looks at the twenty geek films coming out this summer.

As always the Memorial Day weekend is the official beginning of the summer blockbuster movie season.  There's always a couple of films that just can't wait (this year it's Thor, Priest, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides) but from Friday until August it’s going to be not just wall to wall movies but our kind of movies.  Of course quite a few of them are based on comic books, including Priest and Cowboys & Aliens, not that the producers of either film have gone out of their way to let the general public know it.  But the slate is also heavily dominated by everything we love that was once considered a 'niche' genre; science fiction, fantasy, animation, etc.

I've written on this subject before (see "Confessions of a Comic Book Guy--Coming This Summer") but not a lot has changed since 2008, when we were facing bad economic times with high gas prices and eleven to thirteen genre movies were released that summer.  Things aren't a whole lot better now, gas prices are even higher and (including the early starters) I count twenty releases:

Harry Potter and the Deadly Hollows Part 2, Kung Fu Panda 2, Green Lantern, X-Men: First Class, Mr. Popper’s Penguins, Cars 2, Super 8, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Captain America: The First Avenger, The Smurfs, Cowboys & Aliens, Winnie The Pooh, Zookeeper, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Conan the Barbarian, and Spy Kids: All The Time In The World.

I’ll freely admit that I’m pushing things a little by putting a family comedy like Mr. Popper's Penguins on the list (though it seems to have some CGI in it and is based on a classic children's book, not that the film seems to have much to do with it other than the basic premise and title).  And I know the romantic comedy Zookeeper is also a bit of a reach, though from the trailers it does look a lot like Night at the Museum with animals instead of exhibits.  The field is incredibly crowded this year, so much so that I (and I really wish I was being ironic or writing this for comic effect) but I've completely forgotten that there were new Conan and Apes movies coming out this summer.  Twice.

In the face of this kind of overwhelming entertainment overload you have to ask questions.  Like, do we really need this many movies coming out at once?  Has the theatrical release of these kind of movies increasingly become just an elaborate publicity campaign for their Netflix release?  And, most importantly, does any of this have anything to do with us?  Because, while anything that raises the profile of comic books, science fiction and fantasy certainly doesn't do the direct sales market any harm, does it actually do any of us any good?

Because we all know that a big successful movie based on a comic book character doesn’t mean increased sales for that character's comic book.  Knowing that, Marvel's policy seems to be to simultaneously publish as many different series of Thor and Captain America as the market will bear (and then some).  I mean, just compare the number of Captain America comics coming out this month to the number of Green Lantern comics.

They do give us more merchandise to move, including the inevitable comic book adaptations, prequels and sequels, not that I’m deriding or dismissing them.  Not anymore anyway, not when the second volume of Twight: The Graphic Novel has a print run of 350,000 copies (see "'Twilight: The Graphic Novel' Vol. 2").

Oh, in case you haven't caught them yet the first commercials for the Green Lantern toys are currently running on Cartoon Network, sometimes right before one for the Green Lantern movie.  Also currently running on the network is a completely context free ad for the X-Men: First Class movie in which there's absolutely no hint that it takes place in the 1960's or that the Cuban Missile is a major plot point.  Instead we’re just shown footage of a group of attractive young people messing around and using their super powers.

And finally, in case any of you missed it, on May 19-21 and May 23-24 the daily syndicated comic strip La Cucaracha by Lalo Alcaraz satirically dealt with the whole Superman-renouncing-his-U.S.-citizenship business.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely  those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.