You can blame EW's Chris Nashawaty for starting the whole thing off with his essay, subtly titled "Superheroes: How They Ruined Summer Movies":

Looking back now, I can pinpoint the exact moment I fell out of love with summer movies: May 3, 2002. I ducked out of work early that afternoon to wait in line for the first screening of the first blockbuster movie of the summer. I remember looking around at the swarm of hooky-playing droolers and fanboys and knowing I was precisely where I was meant to be. I would've taken a bullet for these people. After all, we'd shared some indelible event-movie moments over the years. July 3, 1991: Opening day for Terminator 2. June 11, 1993: Jurassic Park. July 3, 1996: Independence Day. Hell, I'd even saved the ticket stubs. Now it was Spider-Man's turn.

Sitting in the darkness of the theater, beaten numb by the whining adolescent angst of Peter Parker, fighting back a yawn during his schmaltzy rain-soaked smooch with Mary Jane Watson, nearly going into diabetic shock from all of the sugar-spun F/X eye candy that honestly couldn't have looked more bogus, I felt...well, I felt really bored. At some point during those endless 121 minutes, I'd changed. And when the audience started whooping as the end credits rolled, I realized that my beloved summer movies were changing too.

Yes, he's really arguing that Spider-Man ruined the good name of Jurassic Park and Terminator 2. But wait — it gets better:

Just 10 years ago, summer had real movies — the kind without genetic mutants whose tortured origin stories are shamelessly cribbed from Freud 101. In the summer of '98, you could go to a multiplex and see Out of Sight, The Truman Show, or Saving Private Ryan. And if you wanted ear-shattering bombast, there was Armageddon. Don't laugh, Michael Bay's starting to look more and more like Antonioni these days.

Apparently, someone's forgotten to tell Chris that there are actually some other movies coming out this summer besides Iron Man, The Dark Knight and The Incredible Hulk. Either that, or he thinks that Sex and The City was originally created by Stan Lee (Chris, if it helps, here's a list of what's being released this summer).

Television Without Pity's Zach Oat speaks up for sanity:

I feel for you, Chris, I really do, because you seem to have gone to see every terrible superhero movie ever made. I presume it's because of your job as a writer at EW and not out of some assumption of quality, but I'm a long-time comic book fan, and even I knew not to go see Catwoman or Ghost Rider or The Punisher in theatres... My advice? "Just walk away," as the great Humungus said in the summer of 1981. Stay away from the movies that are clearly causing you grief. Don't buy that ticket to Hellboy II (the original made $100 million globally, by the way); instead, go see Eddie Murphy in Meet Dave.

Nashawaty's essay is a strange piece (especially for Entertainment Weekly to run), and it feels like he hasn't thought through his argument, but does he have something resembling a point amongst his bitter ramblings? There are a lot of comic-book related movies this year (Besides the three mentioned above, add Hellboy II and Wanted to the list, and you could potentially throw Speed Racer on there if you squint hard enough as well). Maybe it's not "when did comic movies kill summer," but instead "how many comic movies are too many?"

Superheroes: How They Ruined Summer Movies [Entertainment Weekly]

How Chris Nashawaty Ruined My Summer [Television Without Pity]

The 1970s: 1975's Jaws is widely considered the first summer blockbuster. The original Star Wars came out in May 1977 and grossed about $307 million domestically in its first run. The other big summer blockbusters of the late 1970s were Jaws 2, Animal House and Alien, according to this site.

The 1980s: Science fiction scored about one summer blockbuster per year, or maybe two in a good year. Except for the late 1980s, when science fiction had a bit of a slump. Here's the roundup, by year. (A year with an asterisk is one where no science fiction film hit the top 10 movies of the year, box-office-wise.)

1980: Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back ($209 million)
1981: Superman II ($108 million)
1982: E.T. ($359 million) and Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan ($79 million).
1983: Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi ($252 million), Superman III ($60 million) and War Games ($80 million)
1984: Ghostbusters ($260 million) and Star Trek III: The Search For Spock ($76 million)
1985: Cocoon ($76 million) and Back To The Future ($211 million)
1986: Short Circuit ($41 million) and Aliens ($85 million)
* 1987: Predator ($60 million) and Robocop ($53 million)
* 1988: None. (Although Big and Willow were big summer hits.)
1989: Batman ($251 million), Honey I Shrunk The Kids ($131 million)

The 1990s: The number of science fiction movies in the summer's biggest movies increased slightly, with some ups and downs. Some years, the biggest blockbusters included films with a lot of special effects and action-adventure themes, but no overt science fictional elements.

1990: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ($135 million), Total Recall ($119 million), Back To The Future Part III ($88 million), Flatliners ($61 million).
1991: Terminator 2 ($205 million)
1992: Batman Returns ($163 million)
1993: Jurassic Park ($357 million)
* 1994: None. (Although True Lies, Speed and The Mask were in the top 10, and non-summer films Stargate and Star Trek: Generations were in the top 20.)
1995: Batman Forever ($184 million), Apollo 13 ($172 million), Waterworld ($88 million)
1996: Independence Day ($306 million), Phenomenon ($105 million)
1997: Men In Black ($251 million), The Lost World: Jurassic Park ($229 million), Face/Off ($112 million), Batman And Robin ($107 million)
1998: Armageddon ($202 million), Deep Impact ($140 million), Godzilla ($136 million), The Truman Show ($126 million)
1999: Star Wars Episode 1 ($431 million), Wild Wild West ($114 million)

The 2000s: It's really just in the last five years that we've seen more than two or three big science fiction movies dominating the summer pretty much every year. A lot of these have been franchises, comic-book movies and sequels, or some combination of the three. The box-office take of the top 10 movies has increased dramatically, with every year's top 10 movies each grossing well over $100 million.

2000: X-Men ($157 million)
2001: Jurassic Park III ($181 million), Planet of The Apes ($180 million)
2002: Spider-Man ($404 million), Star Wars Episode II ($302 million), Signs (228 million), Men In Black II ($190 million)
2003: The Matrix Reloaded ($282 million), X2: X-Men United ($215 million), Terminator 3 ($150 million), Hulk ($132 million)
2004: Spider-Man 2 ($374 million), The Day After Tomorrow ($187 million), I, Robot ($145 million)
2005: Star Wars: Episode III ($380 million), War Of The Worlds ($234 million), Batman Begins ($205 million), Fantastic Four ($155 million)
2006: X-Men: The Last Stand ($234 million), Superman Returns ($200 million)
2007: Spider-Man 3 ($337 million), Transformers($319 million), The Simpsons Movie ($183 million), Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer ($132 million)

Note: Data is from BoxofficeMojo.com. Dollar figures aren't adjusted for inflation. I left out movies like the original Indiana Jones trilogy, which is clearly fantasy. (Unlike the new Indiana Jones movie, if all reports are to be believed.) I also left out spy movies that might have a few science-fiction touches aren't really about a science-fictional premise. Feel free to bitch at me in the comments.

More interestingly, DC are also releasing the collected edition of Faker, which deals with that college-age dilemma that we've all gone through at one point or another: "What if one of my friends isn't actually real, but instead a physical manifestation of the collective subconsciousness of my social circle?" Written by Lucifer's Mike Carey with lovely scratchy art by The Losers' and Judge Dredd's Jock, consider it the pick of a crop of DC trade paperbacks that also include the highly enjoyable second volume of 1950s sci-fi tales known as Showcase Presents: The Legion of Super-Heroes, future dystopian superhero hijinks in Wildstorm: Armageddon and Robin Hood-inspired archery in Green Arrow: Year One.

(If you're not picking up the expensive books tomorrow but have a hankering for some alternate world superheroics, DC/Wildstorm: Dream War #1 takes the superheroes-fighting-each-other trope and adds in a boost of "dream logic," which will be coming to a Jamba Juice near you soon.)

For those of you who are looking for some Iron Man action, Robert Downey Jr.'s latest meal-ticket can be found in no less than eight separate titles this week (and maybe more; is Shellhead still appearing in Avengers: The Initiative?). But the two that you really want to look for are Iron Man: Legacy of Doom #1 — which sees Iron Man fighting Doctor Doom for the title of "Biggest Asshole In Armor 2008" - and The Invincible Iron Man Omnibus, a 720-page hardcover collecting the first fifty-one stories of Tony Stark's career from the days when men were men, women were ornaments and communists were undermining life itself with their every breath.

As usual, it falls to other publishers to come up with the truly unmissable goods this week, and I'm not talking about the return of Captain Action — the 1960s action figure who could transform himself into various superheroes including Batman and the Lone Ranger — in Captain Action #0. (Although, really? It looks like fun.) I'm also not talking about Boom! Studios' new Lovecraft-inspired anthology, Cthulhu Tales. No, I'm talking about the much-delayed (by more than three years) American Flagg hardcover, reprinting Howard Chaykin's 1980s SF satire for an audience who have probably never read anything like it ever before — Brash, bold, sex-crazed (Well, it is Chaykin) and shot through with Reagan-era politics, Flagg is a great clash of old school, the origins of new school, and some crazy graphic design tricks that no-one else would dare do these days. It's 2032, and out-of-work TV host Reuben Flagg emigrates from Mars to Chicago, joining the Plexus Rangers, who enforce the law in the corrupt dystopian city. Highly recommended if you can come up with the $80 for the hardcover.

For everyone else, why not take a look at what else you could buy instead, and then find out where to buy it. Or, alternatively, rob a bank so that the American Flagg book could be yours after all. Your choice...

To some extent, it's understandable that space adventures play fast and loose with physics. After all, who wants to watch Han Solo spend years on the journey to Alderaan, only to find that the planet has twice Earth gravity and he can barely stand up, much less swagger?

The categories of mistakes in our report card should be pretty self-explanatory, but just in case, I'll expand on them a little bit:

• There's no sound in space
• Not all planets have Earth gravity
• Planets should have diverse climates, instead of one unified climate across a "desert planet" or "forest planet."
• It shouldn't be too easy to communicate with alien creatures, without some kind of high-technology "translator" explanation.
• And it definitely shouldn't be too easy for humans to interbreed with aliens.
• Humans exposed to vacuum without a spacesuit shouldn't explode or shatter. And a "hull breach" where the ship's crew is exposed to vacuum should kill everyone instantly.
• You can't have fires in space, unless there's oxygen leaking out somehow.
• Asteroids or other objects shouldn't be able to float close together without falling into each other's gravity
• People shouldn't be able to dodge lasers and other speed-of-light weapons
• And there's no reason why someone would move in slow-motion in zero gravity.
• Faster-than-light travel is probably not ever going to be possible.

Once we've seen Abrams' Star Trek and his new X-Files revamp show Fringe, we'll have a much better idea of whether Abrams really is brilliant — or just a clever hack. But already, there's plenty of evidence for both sides of the argument. Here's our list of reasons to believe either point of view:

Genius:

- Cloverfield. Once you got past the hype, it really was a great ride, and the nihilistic ending was sort of awesome in a Blake's 7-y way. For once, the fact that everything's a mystery didn't seem to matter, because the mystery was just in the background. In the foreground, you had this you-are-there spectacle of the city falling into ruins and Rob struggling to find Beth despite the pointlessness of it all.

- Lost. It's another thing we won't really be able to evaluate yet, because a lot depends on how well it ends, and how much sense it actually makes in the end. But last week's time-travel episode recharged our faith in the versatility of the concept. When the show works, it's intense and Hobbesian. The whole flash-forward tapestry storyline thing has the makings of a compulsive DVD rewatch.

- Mission Impossible III. Okay, so the make-your-own-defibrillator thing was sort of wack. And what the heck was the rabbit's foot that Tom Cruise has to find anyway? But considering this was a movie starring Tom Cruise, with "III" in the title, it was way better than we had any right to expect. It was sort of a goofy extended episode of Alias.

He hires geniuses. This is probably the best argument for J.J. Abrams being a genius — he recognizes genius in others and hires appropriately. Case in point: Drew Goddard, the Buffy scribe who now writes for Lost and also wrote Cloverfield. Another case in point: Brian K. Vaughn, another Lost writer who also created Y: The Last Man.

Hack:

- All the viral marketing. During the long Lost hiatus, we were bombarded with "clues" on viral sites, where you could track down a phone number that led to another web site that led to a riddle. Did any of it add up to anything in the end? Meanwhile, Cloverfield was two movies: the stark masterpiece you saw in the theater, and the over-complicated version all the online fans were privy to, with all the clues about Tagruato and Slusho! and news reports in Spanish.

- Armageddon. Abrams co-wrote the script of this Michael Bay splode-fest. I watched it recently, and it's just as nonsensical and bizarre as I'd remembered... but much slower moving.

- Alias. It was a fun show at first, but after a while all the daddy issues (and then mommy issues) and the endlessly spiraling "everything you know is wrong" plots started to give us a headache.

- Forever Young. I pretty much covered this one yesterday. But the treacly plot, with the nonsensical motivations — why would being in suspended animation make his girlfriend's supposedly impending death easier to handle? — is pretty hard to take. The film pretty much slides into the ick zone the moment two cute kids revive Mel in the present day. And then there's the fact that he starts to age rapidly, as a side effect of cryogenic suspension. Wha huh?

- Just the fact that he's so prolific. Besides Lost, Fringe and Trek, he's got a show about cancer patients, a show about a notary, and Cloverfield 2 on his plate.

So is he a genius or a hack? Decide for yourself, and then vote in our poll.

• Back to the Future 3: The final action sequence in this movie has not one, but two spectacular train crashes. First, back in 1885 as the Delorean gets pushed up to 88 miles per hour, the locomotive takes a header into the ravine and its boiler explodes, kicking up tons of earth in the process. Then, moments (or years) later when Marty arrives in 1985, he almost gets turned into roadkill by a modern day train, which does reduce the time machine to bits and pieces. There's even a little "death scene" as the flux capacitor "dies."

  

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• The Matrix Revolutions: Niobe might be flying a ship that has "a fat ass," but she does a pretty decent job of evading sentinels, crashing through a barely open door, and not getting everyone squashed when she crash lands into the dock in Zion. She's lost about half of the lifters on the ship, and manages to scrape off just about every external appliance on the thing, which means you wouldn't want her to parallel park anything. Plus they must have some pretty decent seatbelts on that thing.

  

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• Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith: While the acting is this scene is a disaster on another level as Hayden Christensen deadpans "We're coming in too hot," the visual effects are nothing to sneer at. Although why a ship that huge has dragfins and flaps on it, I'll never know. Clearly it's not meant to fly in the atmosphere, and it should have burned to a cinder the way they were flying it. He even yells at R2D2! Don't blame the droid for your bad acting, just take it like a man and crash that damn thing.

  

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• Armageddon: Not long after they've already destroyed a space station, the flight crew of the Independence gets nervous about landing on the ginormous asteroid and tries to adjust course. This results in several "OH SHIT!" moments as their shuttle gets riddled with debris, the pilots get sucked out the windows, and it crashes down... fairly intact. There's a great scene when Bruce Willis onboard the Freedom shouts "Is that the Independence?" and a pilot's body smacks into the window. Guess that answers that question.

  

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• Star Trek Generations: The Enterprise separates into two piece, and the back half explodes in a warp core breach, and the saucer section smashes into Veridian III and carves a massive groove of destruction behind it. Technically, crash lands on the planet twice, since Picard hops back in time to stop Soran, although that sadly doesn't mean we get to see Data cuss twice in a row. Is anyone else impressed that the forward viewscreen managed to stay working as long as it did? That's some quality workmanship right there, even if every panel on the ship seems to explode in a shower of sparks whenever the ship hits something.

  

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• Before Charlton Heston entered into acting, he had to change his name to shed his connection to a science fiction classic. Born John Charles Carter, he shared a name with the hero of Edgar Rice Burrough's Barsoom series of books, which featured John Carter as an American Civil War veteran fighting mythical creatures on Mars. The first book, A Princess of Mars, was being developed into a film in the early 1950s as Heston began acting, although it later fell through.
• Planet Of The Apes: While first deemed too expensive, 20th Century Fox eventually shot a $50,000 test scene in the 1960s in order to show that the film had potential. This was Heston's first turn as Astronaut George Taylor, and his star power helped convince the executives to go for it. The resulting film was a success, and led to countless repeatings of Heston's line, "Take your stinking paws off me you damned dirty ape!" for years to come.
• Beneath The Planet Of The Apes: Heston agreed to appear as Taylor again in this film, but only in a small supporting role. He also wanted his character to be killed off, and he got his wish in a spectacular way when he was the one who triggered the Doomsday device that destroyed the planet. The series went on to have three prequel films and a television series, but suffered declining ratings. Who knows if Heston would have been able to save the series, but he'd had his fill of monkeyshines.
• The Omega Man: Heston played Robert Neville in this second film adaptation of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend novel in 1971. Complete with afro-wearing Rosalind Cash playing it to the nines as a Foxy Brown version of Lisa, Heston sported Ray-Bans and an automatic weapon throughout the film's Los Angeles setting. It's a bit campy, but still considered a classic by fans of science fiction and guns everywhere.
• Soylent Green: Is there anyone left alive in the world who doesn't know what Soylent Green is made out of? Based on the 1966 scifi novel Make Room! Make Room!, the Earth has become incredibly overpopulated and food resources are extremely scarce. The Soylent Corporation aims to tide hunger with their miracle foods, soylent red, soylent yellow, and the ever-popular new flavor, soylent green. Heston plays a detective who unravels the mystery behind the tasty treat, leading to another very popular Heston-quote, "Soylent Green is people!"
• Earthquake: While not exactly science fiction in plot, this Heston disaster flick featured a new process that Universal Studios decided to install in theaters in order to help pump the excitement during the movies earthquake sequences. "Sensurround" involved huge speakers and a 1,500 watt amplifier that could pump out "infra bass" — ass-rattling waves of sound. Supposedly the system caused nosebleeds, cracked ceilings, and destroyed china in nearby shops. The process was also used in the 1979 Battlestar Galactica theatrical film, and later relegated to the trash heap.
• Solar Crisis: Heston's return to science fiction films in 1990 resulted in this god-awful travesty of a movie that features an artificially intelligent bomb named Freddy and TV's Parker Lewis Can't Lose himself, Corin Nemec. The combined might and one-armed pushupability of Jack Palance and Charlton Heston couldn't prevent this $55 million dollar movie about dropping a bomb into the sun to redirect solar flares from flaming out.
• Planet of the Apes (2001): Besides a role on an episode of SeaQuest DSV and narrating Michael Bay's Armageddon, Charlton Heston last science fiction role was an uncredited cameo as a dying ape who hands a pistol to his son in this Tim Burton-directed remake. This film was so bad that I wouldn't have wanted my name in the credits either.