And yes, Scott Pilgrim kicks ass. I got O'Malley sign books 1-3 at the MoCCA Festival 10 days ago.

I've read a bunch of "Apocalipstix" stories Cam and Ray have done, and it's not a Tank Girl rip. While they are buttkicking women in a post-apocalyptic landscape, they regard their journeys as just another tour. The "Josie & the Pussycats" comparison is best, though in this case Val would be the leader, Josie is replaced by a Japanese cowgirl, and Melody is still sweet and cute with a slightly psychotic edge.

Jerome Beatty Jr. was a great writer of kids scifi for about 20 years, creating the "Matthew Looney" and "Bob Fulton" series. After the 2nd Fulton book it looks like he just gave up, and didn't publish anything for the last 20 years of his life. He died in 2002 at 88.

I also was a huge fan of John Bellairs, who was like Lovecraft for kids. I was particularly fond of the Johnny Dixon series. And of course, you couldn't go wrong with the Edward Gorey covers. As I understand it, John Strickland has continued many of Bellairs' characters since the latter's death in 1991.

I think it's an enormous mistake to remake Robocop. The original stands up as it is; it's still vicious and disturbing. I'm betting any remake is going to defang it to make it have a PG-13 rating.

@rufustfyrfly: You could have just got the Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves Sherwood Forest playset; it was the same mold.

...it's fucking horrible. And here I thought it couldn't get worse than the Machine Wars series. Egads.

@hapeximendios: That one I remember. Perhaps it wasn't so much the writing on Punisher 2099 that was awful (who was it, Chuck Dixon?) as it was Tom Morgan's art, which made everyone look like a pituitary case. I do recall I liked his flying motorcycle and the surveillance video jammer which would replace his face with a pixelated skull; that was nifty.

@beelzebuddha: I will try DMT before I'm too old to justify such things. Them machine elves and I need to chat.

@Miranda Kali: Presently I live just north of the MD/PA line, about 100 minutes from DC, and I often come down. If this turns into an official io9 meetup I might make a point of attending.

Also, don't forget The Legacy Virus from X-Men, aka "Mutant AIDS," as if mutancy itself weren't bad enough to be treated as a genetic disease. Also, Cable suffers from the Techno-Organic Virus, hence his cyborg arm.

And isn't 12 Monkeys all about finding the source of a plague that drove humanity underground? Or was that all contrivance to justify showing us Bruce Willis' bare ass?

Alternatively, you could do some rendition of The Sinister Six, maybe with Kraven, Rhino, Chameleon, Vulture, Mysterio and Electro. Don't even bother to do more than a little exposition for the characters; they just are who they are and they've been hired to kneecap our Friedly Neighborhood Spider-Man. The fun is in how they systematically fuck with him, and then, after he recovers, how he turns them against one another.

Personally, I wouldn't mind a flick of Spider-Man 2099, but I realize I'm in the minority here. Trust me, the first couple years of that book were killer.

About a decade ago I was working with a friend who wanted to create a comic/cartoon/toy line about helicopters from Hell. Granted, not the cuddliest concept, probably aimed more at disaffected teens and emotionally-stunted adults, but I had to stop myself from making one with dicks for the blades of its rotor. Trust me, the one made of teeth, mouths and tongues was nasty enough.

I've resisted pretty much all the Ultimate Marvel books other than Ultimates. I hear good things about Ultimate Spider-Man, but there's a steep dropoff thereafter. (Granted, I am not the target audience; continuity or no, I tend to prefer stories with more literary qualities, ie, beginnings, middles and, most importantly, ENDS.) It seems to me an exercise in short term gain over long term viability. Right now, yes, these books are edgy reinterpretations of their core franchises that are accessible to those unfamiliar with continuity or production values any lesser than those of the past decade or names beyond who's hot this minute, but as time rolls on I predict these books will come off even more dated than the originals. What then? "Super Penultimate Marvel"? Meanwhile, the regular books have disappeared up their own poop chutes in pursuit of the next "ZOMG Nothing will ever be the same WTF" moments at the expense of actual storytelling.

@Final: He might have been autistic, but he was somehow better adjusted than Keeyop on Battle of the Planets, who served much the same role. (Actually, in the Japanese original, Kagaku Ninjatai Gatchaman, Jinpei, that character, is so foul-mouthed that the first American version had no idea how to write for him, so they gave him to burbles to cover.)

I knew it was over for Smallville halfway through the third season in the episode that Lex loses his shit and Clark has to save him in full view. When it was done I turned to my old roommate and said, "This show will never have an episode better than this one." All subsequent eps to which I've been subjected have borne out this suspicion.

I don't know how I'd make Doomsday work on the show, but if Welling wants out his "death" might be the ideal transition. They could even do a Reign of the Supermen storyline to reboot the whole series with Kon-El/Conner Kent as the second Superboy.

In addition to the "cyberpunk" version of Machine Man, there was also a version from the latter '90's under the title X-51 (by which he's referred by The Watcher in Earth X) under the M-Tech imprint, which also included reimagined Warlock and Deathlok series. He looked more like Robocop without his visor in that.

I just wish Mignola got back to doing more comics. I know comparatively it pays for shit (oh, believe me, I know), but he runs the risk of going down Frank Miller's path where he forgets how to do quality comics while doing mediocre movies.

(The kids love this one.)

Don't forget h2g2.com, the wiki version of the guide that Adams himself launched before his untimely demise. Now that's meta.

Also, over on waxy.org there's a recent discovery of Infocom intracompany emails from the late '80's tracking the (failed) attempt to develop a sequel to the Hitchhikers text adventure game that would have been called Milliways, with supposedly two playable (albeit incomplete) demos.

OK, I'm being harsh: Joss Whedon and John Cassaday's Astonishing X-Men has been awesome, but only because it hearkens back to the prime of Claremont's tenure.

But c'mon, this doesn't sell the movie in the least. If you don't even have any costume footage, at least give us some dialogue. Right now there's nothing to suggest this is anything other than a Z-grade Wes Anderson movie.

Does anyone else find themselves wondering what an Eternian rabbi would look like?

Dark City: Rufus Sewell steps out of the machine and literally becomes God. You don't get much broader strokes than that.

Donnie Darko: Donnie actually says, "Deus ex machina." Then a car runs Gretchen over, causing the cokeheads to flee, and Donnie's personal god, Frank, steps out of the car, a machine.

Some other noises that I would have included:

* the power sounds of the different animal members of The Herculoids: Gloop, Gleep, Igoo, Zok and Tundro;
* the sound of Voltron forming the Blazing Sword;
* one word: SNIKT;
* the noise which accompanied the yells of "Power EXTREME" on Centurions;
* the effect when Sam would leap out and in on Quantum Leap;
* another word: blipverts.

As usual, I could keep going, but I have to sleep sometime.

The biggest argument I can make against steampunk, though, is that it may be a subculture that has been so consciously created to be so, which tends to disappear up its own asshole. Once you codify its values and goals, you stunt if not outrightly kill its organic, natural growth, and lower its defenses to appropriation and assimilation. It's also promoted by demagogue types who are piggybacking its still somewhat underground status as a means of self-aggrandizement. If they can position themselves as heralds or prophets of this new paradigm, their fortunes are more or less set for life, however the "movement," such as it is, turns out. Plus, it ought to be noted that the Victorian era in England augured of the proverbial sun setting on the British Empire, and was characterized by morbidity; the obvious bloodline to goth culture takes care of the latter, and the present status of the U.S. in particular parallels the former. Is that something we really want to celebrate?

For the time being, however, I feel we as either observers or casual participants in this scene ought to focus on what's right about the idea, and shun those who look to hijack it for less than selfless ends or, conversely, try to burden what's fun about it with more sanguine attitudes. Certainly, we ought to take the lessons it would seem to be teaching and make the best of them.