It’s not really a remake of the 1999 movie, more like yet another variation on THE MUMMY theme, just like all the MUMMY movies that preceded the Brendan Fraser version.

Looks a lot less jokey (and more ominous) than the 1990s version. Kinda looks like a blockbuster version of Hammer’s BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY’S TOMB (1971), complete with all-powerful Mummy goddess . ...

(The less said about the remake with Charlton Heston the better.)

Yep! Starlord was much darker in his first appearance, written by Steve Englehart, but he was soon reinvented as a more swashbuckling hero by Chris Claremont and John Byrne.

And Star-Lord and Drax were VERY different back in the seventies when they were first introduced. Hard to say about Mantis at this point.

Part of me will never forgive Mantis for trying to steal the Vision from the Scarlet Witch back in the day, even though she eventually married a tree instead. :)

(No, I’m not making…

Yep, the old INVASION mini-series from several years back.

I also sometimes get the fannish version: where you’re at a sci-convention at an unfamiliar hotel, or have misplaced your schedule, and can’t find the panel you’re supposed to be on . . . .

I swear to God, this is a thing.

Ooh, that would make sense!

You beat me to the punch! I was just about to suggest that.

(I assume you caught him playing the Devil on THE LIBRARIANS last season?)

On the other hand, I did get to write a fight between Wonder Woman and Frankenstein a few years later, which my inner twelve-year-old enjoyed way too much! :)

Although, to be honest, the Universal movies were always a bit fuzzy about when and where they were set. If you look closely, most of them were actually set in the present-day (i.e. the thirties and forties), although it was hard to tell what with most of them being set in some sort of archetypal, vaguely Germanic…

Well, I’m sure there will be more action (and gore) because it isn’t 1932 or even 1959 anymore, but as long as they keep some of the atmosphere and horror elements, it might work. Hammer also upped the sex and violence and action, compared to the Universal flicks, but they made it work.

(I still remember the first…

There were actually three previous versions: THE MUMMY in 1932, THE MUMMY’S HAND in 1940 (which was basically a reboot of the 30s movie), and THE MUMMY in 1959. The Brendan Fraser version owes the most to the original 1932 movie, in that Imhotep is an evil sorcerer and not just a shambling, bandaged monstrosity, but…

On the other hand, it can’t be worse than VAN HELSING, which is a movie I really, really wanted to like. I actually lobbied to write the novelization, but another writer got that gig instead, which I felt much better about after I actually saw the movie. :)

Honestly, I’m crossing my fingers and hoping for the best. I’m…

By coincidence, I rewatched ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET THE MUMMY just a few weeks ago. I had forgotten that Michael Ansara (from STAR TREK’s “Day of the Dove”) played a henchman in that . . ..

The classic Universal Monsters are high on my list on personal icons—and the top of my bucket list when it comes to characters I still hope to write someday.

(There’s actually an autographed photo of the Creature from the Black Lagoon framed on the wall of my office as I’m typing this—and figurines of Boris Karloff…

She was great in STAR TREK BEYOND, too.

That was the 1959 Hammer Films version, which is probably the best of Hammer’s MUMMY movies. (Although I have a soft spot for BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY’S TOMB.)

I admit this is one of my pet peeves: dismissing any movies made before 1975 (or later) as irrelevant or, worse yet, ignoring their existence altogether.

Call me crazy, but I would prefer not to sweep decades of movie history under the rug.

(Says the guy who watches way too much TCM.)

Can’t resist pointing out that Bram Stoker did the female mummy thing more than a hundred years ago. The more things change . . ..

But the “original” was also a remake.

And, yes, I’m going to cringe every time somebody refers to the 1999 movie as the “original” version of THE MUMMY. Bear with me.