It is one seriously superhero summer, and it's still just warming up.

I'll have a piece up in a little while about my experience watching "Thor" with the boys, and as soon as they were available, I bought them each a toy Mjolnir.  They make thunder sounds when you press a button, and they're soft enough that you can hit something without hurting it.  Or at least, that was my thought.  Within three days, the boys had pushed their mother to the breaking point.  I guess she didn't think it was as funny as I did to hear WHACK! THUNDER! "Don't hit me!" over and over from the playroom.

As excited as they were for "Thor," and as much as they've enjoyed watching the "Captain America" trailer over and over, the film that seems to have already won their hearts and minds for this summer is "Green Lantern," and I understand.  Ever since they saw that Wonder-Con piece that Warner Bros. put online, they have been absolutely manic about the mythology of the world of Hal Jordan.

I'm going to guess this will not be an uncommon response. 

One thing I've realized as a parent is that kids love to learn a new vocabulary for a movie.  They love films where there are a million little characters to memorize and play with.  The variety on display in the Green Lantern Corps is one of the many things that appeals to them right away.  The film's big crazy cosmic scale excites them because it combines so many things they like… monsters and outer space and superheroes and jet planes and creepy-looking things.

The new "Green Lantern" trailer that's out today offers up our best look yet at the story of the film, which basically sees Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) joining the Green Lantern Corps just in time to face off against Parallax, a bizarre yellow energy being that wants to destroy Earth.  We see Guardians in this trailer for the first time.  We hear Kilowog speak with the voice of Michael Clarke Duncan.  We get some instruction from Tomar Re (Geoffrey Rush) in the ways of building constructs.  Seriously… this trailer's got it all.

Including the Oath.  I can't even explain what a big deal the Oath is in the house right now.  In this exclusive clip from the movie, two new recruits to the Corps named A'llen and To Shi give the Oath for the first time:



Wait… is this movie going to be adorable? I wasn't expecting that.

In all seriousness, I think they've done a great job of turning around some rancid buzz and making "Green Lantern" look like the "Star Wars"-meets-superheroes film that they've always claimed they were making.

"Green Lantern" opens in theaters everywhere June 17, 2011.