What happens when a new, exciting, summer movie is about to be released? Usually, it means that you will see commercials on TV and online that show the trailer for the movie. It could mean that fast food restaurants will have toys connected to the movie. You don’t usually see characters from action movies appearing in advertisements for insurance companies, though. Until now, that is.
This June, a movie called “X-Men: First Class” will be released in theaters. It is the latest movie in a series of movies involving the X-Men. The first one was simply titled “X-Men”, and came out in 2000. Next was “X-2”, which was released in 2003, and is obviously the second film of the series. In 2006, there was “X-Men: The Last Stand”, and then, in 2009, there was “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”.
It seems that once you start making movies about a group of comic book characters, or superheroes, you end up making a whole string of them. How many Batman movies have there been? I’ve lost count.
The X-Men movies are based on a comic series from Marvel Comics. The series was created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby. The first issue appeared in 1969, and the series has continued, and evolved, from that point on.
If you have no idea what the X-men are, let me briefly explain. The comic starts in a fictional world that very much resembles ours. The big difference is that there are mutants in this world, which are people who are born with special powers. The world doesn’t like them very much, and this inspires Professor Xavier to create a place for young mutants to train to use their powers in ways that will benefit humanity.
Some of the original X-Men would be recognized even by people who have little interest in comic books. If you watched the cartoons when you were a child, then you know who Cyclops, Iceman, and Beast are.
Beast, of course, is covered with blue fur, and has fangs and claws. In addition to being incredibly strong and agile, Beast is also brilliant. Perhaps the high intelligence of this character is what attracted whomever wrote the current ad for Farmer’s Insurance. After all, one would expect an insurance agent to be pretty smart, right?
That is my best guess as to what spawned the ad. In it, Beast is an exchange student at “University of Farmers”. He is introduced to his new class as “an exchange student from the X-Men School”. He is immediately assaulted with a barrage of questions from his classmates, which is stopped by the teacher. The teacher mentions that he hopes their exchange student is being treated better than his students were treating Beast. This is followed by a quick few seconds showing his exchange student holding up a target at the X-Men school.
The ad is for Farmers Insurance. This insurance company tends to think outside the box at little bit. They once appeared in the popular Facebook game called Farmville, “selling” crop insurance for when people’s virtual crops withered.
Image by colmmcsky on Flickr