Thank Mark Waid's podcast for the heads-up about this failed pilot starring a pre-Trek Shatner and pre-Batman West. Just think, if this show had been picked up, there might never have been a series about humanity boldly going where no man had gone before...!

Admittedly, that's probably not the reaction that LendingTree, the online lending company, hoped that their new advertising campaign would provoke, but what else do you expect when your ads feature former Batman Adam West telling us that "a wave of financial tomfoolery has been unleashed upon us," before calling those responsible "corporate mischief-makers"?

The new campaign - with tagline "You to the rescue" - hopes to tap into disquiet with financial experts by promoting the idea that LendingTree allows you to stay in charge of your money, but we're not sure that telling us to dress up as superheroes is really the way to go about it.

LendingTree "Great Scott" [AdWeek]

Fox made her lazy diss in an interview with the London Times last week, addressing rumors that she could take the lead in a potential WW movie:

Wonder Woman is a lame superhero... She flies around in her invisible jet and her weaponry is a lasso that makes you tell the truth. I just don't get it. Somebody has a big challenge on their hands whoever takes that role but I don't want to do it.

Commenting on the upset about her comment, Marvel Comics' Brian Michael Bendis - writer of New Avengers, Dark Avengers and the upcoming Spider-Woman, amongst many others - twittered a couple of additional jabs:

Spider-Woman is cooler than Wonder Woman in every way possible. Wonder Woman's got a pipply ass! she's the pipply ass of comics!! Spider-Woman has better hair, better costume, frank cho implants and a fucked up origin. Wonder Woman is a walking std farm!!

So, you know, let's put aside the whole "implants make a character better" thing, and even the "walking STD farm" thing, for a second (No, really; I know that's asking for a lot) and wonder out loud, just what is it that's so wrong with Wonder Woman? As Robot 6's Tom Bondurant, who's been writing about DC Comics characters for years, explains, the character's longevity alone should afford her some respect:

Brief breaks notwithstanding, Wonder Woman is one of the few Golden Age characters whose adventures have been published continuously ever since her introduction. Superman and Batman are the only others, so this alone puts them all in the same class.

However, if such minds as Bendis and Fox agree that she's lame and don't get what makes her an appealing character, then what is she doing wrong?

Maybe Bendis is right, in part; maybe it's the costume. That's something that even her writers have had trouble with in the past; here's what novelist Jodi Picoult - who wrote the character for a brief time in 2007 - told USA Today:

[R]ight off the bat, I tried to get her out of her bustier, 'cause let's face it, no woman would ever fight crime in one. But that was a no-no. (Laughs)

Greg Rucka, who wrote the Wonder Woman title for three years, fought a similar battle with no success:

I tried to get the costume changed from the start. Even had a story built around it. Despite repeated attempts, the response was a resounding no, and the arguments made were always commercial and economic ones, rather than those of story or content... the fact is, she's been hyper-sexualized from the moment of inception, and there's no likelihood that portrayal will ever change, no matter who's writing the book, nor who's drawing it. It's not unique to that character, though she is, I think, by far, the most visible example of it.

Is the problem, perhaps, that DC Comics are unsure about her audience? Picoult again:

It was very hard to gauge her readership. She obviously is drawn for the adolescent male. She has a lot of adult male fans reading her because of that and who are very tied to her and want to make sure she's not ruined by anybody. She has a huge gay following for both men and women. I think that DC has always hoped she would be a superhero for young women as well, but many of them at this point are reading Japanese comics.

Rucka has been less optimistic at times:

I honestly think DC/WB has no idea who her target audience is. I suspect, more often than not, they think she has none.

But why is that the case? Weirdly enough, I think that what makes Wonder Woman such an interesting character to those who love her is also her biggest weakness when it comes to explaining why she's not lame to everyone else: She's too complex a character to really match up with contemporaries Superman and Batman. Both Clark and Bruce can be summed up in one high concept sentence ("Last member of an alien race rocketed to Earth who personifies the best parts of humanity as he defends his adopted home planet" and "A man who's dedicated his life to fighting crime so that no-one ever has to suffer the same kind of tragedy that he has", respectively), and it's something that most successful DC superheroes have (Green Lantern: "Space cop with a magic wishing ring"; Flash: "The fastest man alive"; Aquaman: "King of the seas"). Wonder Woman, though...? Not so much. Here's Greg Rucka again, talking about what makes him love the character in a 2004 interview:

She's an Amazon. Amazons are a warriors, they're a martial culture. They can promote belief in peace in part because they've been living in absolute seclusion and isolation for so long, and also because if you mess with them, they'll kill you. It's easy to dictate peace when you're the baddest motherfucker on the block. Diana comes from this culture where she's bred for war, but is able to reap the rewards of 3000 years of peace - the art, the science, the philosophy. Add to that these divine elements, like the wisdom of Athena and so on, and you've got this person who has all these ingredients and they are in many ways pulling her in different directions, but she somehow manages to unify them all for a single direction. She's not going crazy, she's not neurotic - you look at every other superhero ever and they are all malfunctioning in some way [laughs]. In some way, they are internally malfunctioning - Diana really isn't, even with all the paradoxes and conflicts, she may be the most well-adjusted superhero out there. At least when I look at her, that's what I see. She's somebody who knows what she's about and has absolute conviction in what she believes and is willing to fight for those things she believes, be it with words or swords. I love the character and the more I work with her, the more I love her.

That mix of warrior and peacemaker is just one of things that makes her attractive to current Wonder Woman writer Gail Simone:

I have a scene in one of my early issues where Wonder Woman lets an opponent kick the crap out of her, without fighting back, just her extending an open hand to him, no matter what his rage makes him do. I think that's a big part of it - she COULD tear someone's head off, she COULD destroy a country if she chose. But she would consider that a failure as a warrior for peace. The death of an enemy is not victory to her. I love that stuff. I think it's a far better blueprint for the future than most of the action hero stuff out there right now.

The problem with Wonder Woman may be that the conflicts within her character - even if, as Rucka points out, the character herself has come to terms with them - make it harder for people to come up with an idea of who Wonder Woman is (Not for nothing was her series relaunched in 2007 with a storyline called "Who Is Wonder Woman," after all), and they end up looking at all the... well, the unimportant things, instead. It's understandable, in one sense, for people to focus on the way the character looks; comics are a visual medium, and she's not alone in that sense of objectification (Captain America, Batman and Superman are three male characters who have become similarly misunderstood because of their iconic, somewhat dated, looks), and just as easy for people to base misconceptions of the character on the little bits of her pop culture identity that they can remember: the invisible plane, the lasso of truth, and so on. But none of those things are who Wonder Woman is. It's as if Batman was reduced to half-remembered snippets from the Adam West television show from the 1960s.

It's a catch-22, of course; most people think Wonder Woman is lame because they don't know who Wonder Woman is, but they're unlikely to get to know Wonder Woman because they think Wonder Woman is lame. What she lacks is a Dark Knight Returns (or, for that matter, a The Dark Knight); a high-profile project that pushes people to re-evaluate the preconceptions and redefines the character in the mainstream consciousness, and not in the "Out of my way, sperm bank" direction... Something made by people with enough name recognition that could overcome concerns or apathy about the character enough to convince the masses to at least give it a try, and enough understanding of what makes the character interesting, unlike her peers and... well, wonderful.

Anyone want to see if we can convince Joss Whedon to come back to the idea of a Wonder Woman movie after all?

For each drinking game, we're just listing the absolute best rule of the bunch. For the whole set, click through on each link. (Unfortunately, there was no way I could test-drive all of these; I kind of wanted to keep my liver.)

General:

Drinking Game with the Sci-Fi Channels Original Movies (by Joanna Lopez, associatedcontent.com)
Best Rule: four sips if the movie looks like a poor person's version of the latest popular movie playing in theaters.
Likelihood of Intoxication: Relatively High

The Scifi/Action/Disaster Movie Drinking Game (posted by oblivion)
Best Rule: Evil clown/mime/street performer (Because, really, I had no idea that happened with any sort of regularity in sci-fi and action films.)
Second-Best Rule: Leading man named after verb or mineral (Because now I'm trying to think of an example and can't . . . You know, this game has some odd rules.)
Likelihood of Intoxication: Moderately High, especially if the plot involves a guy named Hunt Quartz preventing a syndicate of mimes from setting off their hurricane-causing doomsday machine

Spot the Scifi Cliché! A Drinking Game(by Charlie Jane Anders, here at io9)
Best Rule: The hero has a miraculous gadget (which may rhyme with ironic brew diver) allowing him to get out of literally any difficult situation with no hassle.
Score: Minus 10 points.
Drinking game: Make yourself a sonic screwdriver out of orange juice, vodka and ultrasonic vibrations. Drink the whole thing in one go.
Likelihood of Intoxication: Probably highest if you're watching a show that may rhyme with Proctor Glue (Speaking of which . . .)

Specific:

Doctor Who - The Drinking Game! (by Simon Oxwell)
Best Rule: If you see something of which 1970s anti-violence crusader Mary Whitehouse would disapprove (This is a drinking game designed for the classic series, by the way.)
Likelihood of Intoxication: Moderate, depending on which Doctor it is and how many Daleks are present.

The Batman Movie (1966) Drinking Game (Sky of Blue's Hoosier Journal of Inanity)
(Can I just say how pleased I am that someone's made a drinking game for this movie, considering how much it pretty much cries out for one?)
Best Rule: Now, here's the REAL kicker. At one point in the movie, Robin asks Batman, "You risked your life to save that riffraff in the bar?" Chug ONE ENTIRE BEVERAGE upon Batman's reply of, "They may be drinkers, Robin, but they're also human beings ..."
Second-Best Rule: "Under this garb we're perfectly ordinary Americans."
Likelihood of Intoxication: I'm going to say "Pretty High," because according to the creator of the game: "With what we were drinking, no one remained upright much past Rule 5." (Although now I just want to know what they were drinking . . .)

Drunkgate: Stargate Drinking Game (for Stargate: SG-1)
Best Rule: The team has to impersonate deities. (This includes if they are recognized as such but choose not to carry out the impersonation.)
Second-Best Rule: There are trees. (Basically, I think this rule should be added to any and all drinking games.)
Likelihood of Intoxication: Extremely High, from what I can tell (But only if you follow all the rules, of which there are about a million)

The (Original Series) Tomorrow People Drinking Game (by Beth Epstein, with submissions by Heidi Howard, Amy Houghton, and Maria Sloughter)
Best Rule: A trend in fashion or pop culture turns out to be an insidious alien plot.
Likelihood of Intoxication: Extremely Low if you follow the rule at the start of the game: "Tomorrow People don't ingest anything that will affect the functioning of their minds. Alcohol affects the mind. Therefore, Tomorrow People don't drink alcohol. This game is meant for root beer, juice, or other soft drinks, or you could use M&M's (1=sip, 2=gulp, use snack size/halloween size bags for whole drink— or two really big handfuls)." (I figure this is one of those instances in which rules were made to be broken, though.)

300 Drinking Game (SuperHeroHype Boards)
Best Rules (Aka, the only rules): Every time the word Sparta or Spartan is mentioned, you drink. Or if you want to get really plastered, you have to keep chugging during all the slow-mo.
Likelihood of Intoxication: For a game with only two rules, I feel the odds are pretty darned high.

The Battlestar Galactica Drinking Game (by Denise Martin, Los Angeles Times)
Best Rule: Sneak a swig... Every time you wonder why more people watch "Lost."
Likelihood of Intoxication: Moderate.

Supernatural Drinking Game (by Lsketch42, via YouTube)

Best Rule: I don't know that there's a best rule here, as I couldn't really get past the polka music and The Chicken Dance. That being said, I admire anyone who condenses an entire show down to the moments when you ought to be drinking.
Likelihood of Intoxication: If you watch the drinking game video, you're probably just going to have to chug for a couple minutes straight, so I figure your odds of being buzzed by the end are up there. (You will have also endured a few minutes of the aforementioned Chicken Dance music, so I think you've earned the buzz.) If actually watching the show, with all the extraneous plot and stuff, your chances of intoxication plummet pretty severely, I think.

KryptonSite's Smallville Drinking Game! (via KryptonSite)
Best Rule: You count more than a five second awkward silence between Clark and Lana.
Likelihood of Intoxication: Pretty Darned High
(Then again, here is another, which gives you new rules every time you refresh the page.)

The Star Trek Drinking Game
Best Rule: A newly discovered planet is "Much like Earth"
Second Best Rule: Kirk violates the prime directive (Mostly because I thought it said "detective" for a minute. Now that's an episode that should have happened.)
Likelihood of Intoxication: Pretty High (I'm interested to see how well it holds up in the movie coming out next week.)

Heroes: The Drinking Game (Miss Geeky)
(But you can find others here and here. As well as about a hundred other places.)
Best Rule: Mohinder saying "evolution", "mankind", or "cure". (I think you could pass out on this rule alone.)
Likelihood of Intoxication: Pick any one of the games and you can get really wasted. Combine all of them, and you're dead.

Here's the official synopsis of Super Capers:

A wannabe superhero joins a team of bumbling heroes-in-training on a time traveling mission to thwart an evil plot in this high-flying comedy featuring Clint Howard, Adam West, Tom Sizemore, and Doug Jones. Ed Gruberman (Justin Whalin) may not possess any actual super-powers, though his passion for fighting crime rivals that of even the greatest comic book do-gooders. When Ed becomes a member of The Super Capers, an oddball team of aspiring superheroes, it seems as if his dream of fighting crime for real is about to come true. Upon discovering evidence of an evil plot involving gold bullion, an alluring femme fatale, and a powerful criminal mastermind, Ed travels back in time to prevent a disaster the likes of which the world has never seen.

We'll have an interview with writer/director Ray Griggs, tomorrow or Friday. [IMDB]

Rich Johnson with Lying In The Gutters cites sources who claim the whole Watchmen lawsuit is just a ploy by Fox to get the rights to release the 1960s Batman TV series on DVD. Allegedly, Fox owns the rights to the actual footage starring Adam West as the less growly version of the character, but Warner Bros. owns the copyrights to Batman and all the other characters. So Fox's Watchmen suit is aimed at brokering a Bat-deal where Warners okays DVDs of Bruce's campiest moments, in exchange for a go-ahead with Zack Snyder's "Batman can't get it up" movie.

(A side note: I'm a tad embarrassed — I thought the 60s Batman show was on DVD already, or I would have mentioned it for sure in my roundup of great science fiction TV that isn't on DVD yet. Also, sorry about Misfits of Science too.)

Other sources, like TV Shows On DVD, say it's not that simple — even if Fox gets Warners to agree to let Batman out of this fiendish rights trap, they still have to negotiate new contracts with every actor, propmaker and craft services worker from the original show. That's because the original 1960s contracts only covered broadcast rights. (But I'm wondering if that isn't the case with every classic show that gets released on DVD? Don't most of those shows have contracts only covering first run and syndication rights, not other formats? And yet, we get every episode of Matlock on DVD.) In any case, even the TV Shows people say it's quite likely that Batman will be the peacemaker who steps in and settles this bitter dispute between two media giants over Bruce's almost-lookalike and his dysfunctional friends. [Lying In The Gutters and TV Shows on DVD via IGN]

Proving that he just doesn't know when to quit, former Batman Adam West has a plan on how he can get a role in Christian Bale's new Batman movies... by playing Bruce Wayne's father. Who also happens to be Batman.

Talking to the Den of Geeks website, West explained that he'd happily appear in any potential sequel to The Dark Knight:

Well I’d love to. I like Christian Bale. I’ve heard he’s a big fan of mine, but I certainly reciprocate. I think he’s really very good. I’d love to play his father. The older Batman comes out of the woodwork, when times get really tough…maybe a few tips here and there…

Now, I know that Thomas Wayne was a Batman in the comics - Really, don't ask - and I also know that he's currently being rumored to have been a bad-guy who may, in fact, still be alive having faked his own death to cover up his involvement in the murder of his wife. But none of that changes the fact that the very idea of Adam West playing Batman Snr. in any movie whatsoever is the kind of thing that is likely to make Warner Bros. besieged by a million fanboys with pitchforks and flaming torches and is, therefore, very unlikely to happen indeed.

Which is kind of a shame, as who wouldn't want to see Bale try and act beside West, just to find out whether he could do it without losing his shit or not?

The Den of Geek interview: Adam West [Den of Geek]

Sexina aims to be a campy comedy about a world-famous singer who puts on a leather catsuit and kickboxes ninjas in her spare time. It's a cute concept, and there are lots of sweet moments in the movie. But Sexina never really kicks ass in the movie. I literally sat there waiting for her to do some martial arts or beat up a bad guy, and it never happens. She does hit a guy with a bottle at one point, and there's a sort of free-for-all at the end. But Sexina isn't nearly as tough as Davy Jones (yes, from the Monkees) informs us in the James Bond-esque theme tune. She mostly relies on other people to get her out of trouble.

Most of the movie consists of jokes that fall flat the first time, and then are repeated endlessly. (Like for example, a supporting character is a high school quarterback with a sensitive side, and at one point, his coach grabs his ass. Then his coach grabs his ass again. And again. And again. And again.) The movie is aiming for a sort of John Waters-lite campiness, but doesn't have the nerve to go all the way over the top. The result is a movie which isn't cartoony enough to get away with its nonsensical premise and one-note characters. The funniest part is a guy in a completely silly fake bear costume who mauls a random thug, and apparently that's because the filmmakers got the wrong bear costume by mistake.

West, as the main villain, goes all-the-way gay, which apparently emerged in rehearsals. The movie's baddie, who letches all his robotic boy-bands, wasn't supposed to be quite so gay. But West just got gayer and gayer with every run-through and take.

There was a brief Q&A with the movie's cast and crew after the screening. They mentioned they'd thought Sexina would have a lot of commercial value, but distributors haven't agreed because it doesn't fall into a neat genre and nobody knows how to market it. So now writer/director Eric Sharkey is hoping it'll become a cult movie. Another problem with the film: it aims lots of barbs at 'N Sync and the Backstreet Boys, which were very timely when Sharkey started working on it ten years ago.

I hate to be so mean about a plucky indy movie, but I feel like you should be warned. You may come across Sexina (probably on DVD) and think it'll be a cheesy, so-bad-it's-good late night movie. But it just doesn't commit enough to its premise to reach that territory, and the oceans of rum-and-cokes it would take to make the gay Adam West and his singing robots funny would probably make you pass out.