I will gladly admit the Mundt Nerd-o-Meter is going all about haywire right now at the release of the trailer to X-Men: First Class. After the much loathed celluloid abortion that was X-Men Last Stand — Brett Ratner’s shameless taint-fiddling shit bomb — the X-Franchise desperately needed to get its stomach pumped from the toxic state Ratner had left Bryan Singer’s brilliant first two installments. Luckily for cinephiles and comic book nerds the world over, the franchise is returning to the capable hands of its original creator. Although Bryan Singer is not directing  X-Men: First Class, he did write the story and is heavily involved as producer, working cosely with director Matthew Vaughn — director of the complex British heist film Layer Cake and the recent superhero action/comedy Kick Ass, as well as producer of the criminally underrated Snatch and Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. This could be a film that elevates Vaughn to the next level of, say a Zack Snyder, but it won’t be easy to pull off. They are starting off with an excellent cast, which bodes will for the film. James McAvoy takes a turn as a young Charles Xavier and Michael Fassbender (300, Band of Brothers, Inglourious Basterds) plays Erik Lehnsherr, aka the young Magneto. Promising additions to the cast include the highly talented Oscar nominated Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone) as Mystique, and in what could be the most brilliant casting of the film: January Jones as Emma Frost, the soon-to-be-White Queen of the Hellfire Club — a role that could finally move Jones beyond the Mad Men/Betty Draper confines she’s been locked into (although in a way, she’ll still be playing another ice queen). If you read John Byrne X-Men as a kid and your heart’s not pumping like a SweetTart-overloaded teenager right now, than you may be having a stroke. Let’s just hope Singer’s involvement in the project keeps the integrity and loyalty to source material that made the first 2 X-Men films so exceptional…