Chances are, you've come across lots of SF stories where a disabled person regains the ability to walk in some fantastical way. Usually it's a guy, and his ability to stand up on his two legs is portrayed as a reclaiming of his virility and power. Often times, the disabled hero regains full mobility along the way towards becoming super-powered — or as part of a package of superpowers.

Oftentimes, the regained mobility comes from some kind of fancy assistive technology. And yet, these stories always draw a really sharp distinction between the wheelchair (which is also assistive technology) and this other tech, which is better or more natural. Or more rugged and manly, perhaps. (Both Jake Sully and John Locke defiantly say something along the lines of, "Don't tell me what I can't do.")

So here are 20 characters from science fiction who regained the ability to walk:

Star Trek gives us Captain Christopher Pike, who's stuck in a wheelchair and unable to express himself other than by flashing a light "Yes" or "No." (As Evan Dorkin tweeted yesterday, "Nice 23rd cent tech there, btw. Beep. Boop. Stupid Star Trek.") Captain Pike's mind is still alive in there, but nobody's figured out a way for him to use Morse code, or translate his brain activity into speech. So Spock takes matters into his own hands, risking his own career and Captain Kirk's command to help Captain Pike return to Talos IV, the planet of the obscene craniums. There, Captain Pike can live in a kind of dreamworld for the amusement of the sterile Talosians, but at least he'll be perfectly healthy.

Doctor Who has had lots of wheelchair-bound characters, including the evil Davros and the vicious Collector. But the first character to rock a wheelchair in Who was actually one of the good guys — Dortmun, one of the leaders of the anti-Dalek resistance in "Dalek Invasion Of Earth." Dortmun is confined to a wheelchair due to one of his many failed attempts to devise an anti-Dalek explosive. And not coincidentally, he's a terrible leader whose super-explosives never do what they're supposed to. But then Dortmun finally redeems himself, confronting the Daleks and buying time for the others to escape — by climbing out of his wheelchair and standing to face the Daleks at last. His redeeming act of heroism is clearly linked to his abandonment of the chair. (Skip to about 2:30 in the video.)

Batman gets his spine broken in the Knightfall crossover, by the supervillain Bane. Throughout the extremely long Knightquest storyline that follows, Bruce Wayne walks with a cane or travels in a wheelchair. He searches for Tim Drake's parents, despite the warnings of a spinal surgeon that he's only making his spine damage worse and more incurable. Luckily, his new girlfriend, the altruistic Dr. Shondra Kinsolving, turns out to have magical healing powers, and she heals Batman, giving herself irreparable brain damage in the process. There's a lot of lightning involved, okay? We're all so glad to see Bruce smack around the blond imposter, we don't really care how Bats got his back back. I actually bought the novelization of Knightfall for $1.00 because I was curious to see if Denny O'Neil would make Batman's recovery make any sense whatsoever. Here's how O'Neil writes it:

"Shondra, we've got to get away from that window," Bruce said. "I can't move, so you'll have to —"

"Don't worry," Shondra whispered. "You'll be fine."

Her hand slipped over his, and her fingers tightened slightly. He felt as though she were touching every cell of his body at once — soothing, quieting, healing. The world went away, then, ebbed away from him, and he was left alone with Shondra's touch in a place where there was no pain and terror.

And that's it. The next time we see Bruce in the novelization, he's "shirtless, barefoot, moving as easily and gracefully as he ever had in his life," with the sun on his shoulders.

The X-Men's leader, Professor X, is in a wheelchair — except for all the occasions in which he's been able to get out of it. At one point, Professor X gets the Starjammers' physician, Sikorsky, to clone him a new body with no disabilities. At another point, the mysterious Xorn "heals" Professor X using his special powers over metal — until it turns out that Xorn is really Magneto, and he's just been dicking Professor X around.

Gallilee by Clive Barker features a first-person narrator, Maddox, who's been in a wheelchair for 150 years, ever since he was maimed in an accident. An apocalyptic vision causes Maddox to realize time is running out, causing him to write down his family history — and then he has a spiritual epiphany, which in turn causes him to realize he can walk once more.

The Animorphs freak out after their identities are discovered by the evil Yeerks — and they decide to recruit some more kids to join their team, in case the original members all get captured. So they decided to recruit disabled kids to be the new group of Auxillary Animorphs, because they figured the Yeerks wouldn't have bothered to infest a disabled kid. (So the Animorphs could skip the three-day screening period for new recruits.) And they figure the morphing powers would cure any disabilities. The leader of the Auxillary Animorphs, James, is paralyzed, until he becomes and Animorph and regains full mobility.

The Doom Patrol features its own version of Professor X, the disabled scientist Niles Caulder. And just as Grant Morrison got Professor X out of his wheelchair, Morrison did the same for Niles in the early 1990s. In one issue, Robotman rushes to tell Niles that somebody's shot Joshua. Niles Caulder says (from off panel) "Cliff, Cliff, Cliff. Isn't it obvious?" And as you turn the page, you discover that Niles is standing up, and revealing that he's the one who shot Joshua. It turns out that nanotechnology cured Niles, although later he winds up as just a severed head — and finally, he's back in the wheelchair, with a complete body again.

The Talents by Anne McCaffey includes a character named Peter Reidinger, whose spine is damaged after a wall falls on him, paralyzing him for life. Until Peter realizes he's actually a powerful telekinetic, and he teaches himself to walk by moving his own limbs telekinetically.

Star Wars: Commenter db4dbms points out that Darth Vader is basically a torso inside a robotic exoskeleton, since Anakin had his arms and legs chopped off.

Robot Wars Book 5: Final Battle by Sigmund Brouwer features Tyce, a 14-year-old whose damaged spine has been hooked up to a device that lets him control robots. Tyce thinks about having an operation that would restore his ability to walk (at the cost of his ability to control robots). But then his toes start to wiggle all on their own, after he kills the first woman president of the United States (by accident, I think.)

Green Lantern John Stewart left the Lantern Corps after his wife got killed, and winds up joining the Darkstars, who have much less cool uniforms. Unfortunately, John gets badly injured defending the planet Rann, and becomes disabled. Until Hal Jordan, in his identity as Assclown — I mean, Parallax — heals John Stewart on his way to reignite the sun and save everyone.

Dark Angel gives us Logan Cale, a steely eyed cyber-journalist who's secretly known as Eyes Only. After Logan is injured in an accident, he's paralyzed from the waist down, and hires a live-in physical therapist named Bling. (Who, I'm just guessing, teaches Logan the healing power of giant medallions?) And then Logan meets a guy named Phil, who has an exoskeleton and agrees to give Logan one. The exoskeleton allows Logan to walk, and say goodbye to Bling!

Xenocide by Orson Scott Card shows Miro, who's been disabled and unable to speak normally, discarding his old body and creating a new one by teleporting Outside. The new body is intact, and allows Miro to do all the things he could do before his accident. (Thanks, TVTropes!)

The X-Files episode "All Souls" features a wheelchair-bound girl, who's able to walk out of her house miraculously. Then she's found dead, in a "praying position" with her eyes burned out — and the same thing may be coming for two other similar girls, unless Scully can work out the whole faith-vs-science thing pronto.

M.A.N.T.I.S., Sam Raimi's short-lived superhero series, features a scientist who's confined to a wheelchair — until he puts on his exoskeleton and becomes the crime-fighting dynamo M.A.N.T.I.S.!

Alpha Flight features Roger Bochs, a double amputee, who can "phase" into giant robot armor, allowing him to walk around and do superhero stuff. Later on, a healer gives him actual fleshy legs. But then it turns out that the healer harvested the legs from corpses, and the graft fails.

The Cure by F. Alexander Brejcha is unusual, in that it's a story about a disabled person being cured, written by an actual disabled person. Brejcha writes, in an author's note, that he's paraplegic, while his main character is quadraplegic. Not surprisingly, it deals a lot more with the main character's insecurity and adjustment problems after nanotech restores his mobility.

Dr. Strangelove regains the ability to walk, thanks to the awesomeness of setting off a doomsday device that ravages the globe.

Lost's John Locke is confined to a wheelchair for four years after his con-man bio-dad tosses him out a window. Locke will never walk again... until he goes to the Island, where he's suddenly healed, and becomes the awesome, rugged outdoorsman he always dreamed of being. In one episode, "The Man Behind The Curtain," Ben taunts Locke that the "old" Locke was so ineffectual, he got kicked off a Walkabout "because you couldn't walk." Locke's regained ambulatory status is linked to his virility and is proof that the Island has chosen him as a special person. Ben, meanwhile, is stuck in his wheelchair for a long time, because he's evil and the Island doesn't like him as much. (Although Ben, too, gets to walk eventually, thanks to Locke's presence.)

The Rampaging Hulk features Geoffrey Crawford, a former teacher of Bruce Banner's, who's suffering from a degenerative nerve disease that has him confined to a wheelchair. Bruce visits his old mentor, seeking a cure for his Hulk-itis, and Dr. Crawford has a complicated plan, involving mapping Bruce's DNA and using a teleporter to separate him from his Gamma radiation — but it's actually a scheme to steal Bruce's powers, so Crawford can Hulk out and escape from his wheelchair. Crawford becomes the monstrous Ravage, and puts the beatdown on the Hulk. Including the great sound effect, "Snap!". Also, in Incredible Hulk, Bruce Banner suffers from ALS, but then Reed Richards miraculously cures him. Then Banner turns to the reader, breaking the fourth wall, and explains there's no cure for ALS in real life and you should donate to research charities. Also, in an episode of The Incredible Hulk TV show, Banner is paralyzed from the waist down, until he Hulks out, which soon heals him.

Heroes' Arthur Petrelli is a rare example of an evil person who overcomes disability, thanks to the power of evil. I've blotted out the events of season three from my mind, but as near as I can tell, Mama Petrelli poisons Papa Petrelli, but he survives — except that he's totally paralyzed and unable to move. Until he absorbs the healing power from Adam/Kensei and becomes an unstoppable evil-eyebrow machine. Also on Heroes, Daphne has cerebral palsy and is unable to walk... until her mutant ability kicks in and makes her the fastest runner in the world, because irony.

Additional reporting by Josh C. Snyder. Thanks also to Danny Sichel.

This is actually a great week for collections. There's the Final Crisis Revelations collection, which fans of the current Detective Comics run featuring Batwoman should pick up. Written by the same writer, Greg Rucka, it shows Renee Montoya's Question going up against Darkseid's mind-controlled Gotham City... including Batwoman herself.

DC also has a new hardcover edition of the classic Flash of Two Worlds storyline, which introduced the multiverse to superhero comics and started something that, even forty years later, the company is still mining for new story material.

Marvel aren't exactly slouching either, and their best release this week is most definitely Agents of Atlas: Dark Reign, the first collection of Jeff Parker's must-read series — okay, there was a collection of the mini-series that preceded this, it's true — that embraces Marvel's pulp past and turns it into something new and glamorous.

If hardcovers are too expensive for your taste, there's always individual issues. This week, there are a few great-looking new launches. Like DC's new Doom Patrol (with Metal Men as a back-up strip, by the classic Justice League International creative team of Keith Giffen, JM DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire.) Marvel, meanwhile, has Iron Man: Armor Wars (Iron Man! Versus other Iron Men!). Dark Horse has Star Wars: Dark Times - Blue Harvest #0 (which collects the online previews for the New Hope-era story).) And IDW launches Star Trek Alien Spotlight: Q, which does exactly what it says on the tin.

Superhero fans who want to see good guys gone bad have a couple of things worth picking up this week. Boom! Studios' Irredeemable gets a paperback collection of its first four issues, letting you catch up with Mark Waid's "fall of a hero" fable in time for the fifth issue, also released on Wednesday. And Avatar is releasing the first issue of Absolution, Christos Gage's new series about a superhero who gets pushed to the limit... and then decides that he's done with limits.

And that's not even all. Warren Ellis' graphic novel Frankenstein's Womb, about the secret story behind the writing of Mary Shelley's classic novel, also makes its way into stores. And Dynamite's Terminator: Revolution continues the comic version of John Connor's story with a truly time-bending tale of Johns meeting to defend each other against the ultimate Terminator. Or something.

But the book of the week may be The Gigantic Robot, Tom Gauld's art comix story about a giant weaponized robot who doesn't fulfill his purpose. Sparse, beautifully illustrated and entirely not what you'd expect, it's well worth picking up.

As ever, all of this week's new releases can be found here, before being purchased at your local comic store. Whatever your tastes, you're likely to find something you want this week.

Marvel are apparently trying to flood the shelves tomorrow, but at least they're doing it with good books from good writers. Fred Van Lente is behind the new Savage She-Hulk and Marvel Zombies 4 series. Jeff Parker is writing the reborn Exiles. Andy DIggle is scripting Dark Reign: Hawkeye, and the wonderful Jason Aaron gets a brand new series, Wolverine: Weapon X in advance of next month's movie.

As if that wasn't enough, there's also a new hardcover collection of the last Dark Tower series, Treachery (not to mention Dark Tower: The Guide To Gilead, a fact-file-ish tie-in) and the first issue of time-travel series Timestorm: 2009-2099.

(Of course, time-travel fans may just be picking up the collection of Doctor Who: The Forgotten, which also comes out tomorrow).

While DC's much quieter new release schedule offers mostly continuations of ongoing events and series - I'd definitely point you in the direction of the second issue of Superman: World of New Krypton, just to see if it measures up to the impressive first - that's not to say that they have no new books of note this week. In fact, the Showcase Presents: Doom Patrol Vol. 1 collection may just be the best thing out this week, a collection of the 1960s team of misfit heroes (Radioactive test pilots! Racing car drivers without a body!) that offered an off-kilter alternative to the then-cookie cutter cleanshaven heroes they were surrounded with. Definitely recommended.

Also recommended is Ignition City, the new series from Warren Ellis that we wrote about back in November that mixes steampunk, Deadwood and the fate of all old pulp heroes when they're not young and dashing anymore. Ask for it by name when visiting your local funny book emporium.

That'll be the one you can find here, in case you're wondering - and make sure to check out the complete list of books reaching stores this week before doing so. If they ask, tell 'em that the ghost of Flash Gordon sent you.

Get a Cylon to steal some ballots. When President Roslin was about to lose the election to Gaius Baltar, she decided desperate times called for under-handed measures. She gave her aide, the secret Cylon Tory Foster, permission to steal a box of ballots and replace them. It would have worked, but for the eagle-eyed Felix Gaeta and the uncharacteristically squeamish Bill Adama.

Kill the other candidate in a virtual world. It worked for the Doctor, in the Doctor Who story "The Deadly Assassin." To make a long story short, the Doctor put himself forward as a candidate for the presidency of his home planet, Gallifrey, to escape from trumped up charges of murdering the last president. The Doctor won the election by default — because during the campaign, he took some time out to meet up with his opponent in the Matrix, a virtual dreamscape, and slaughter him ruthlessly. (Serves the guy right for being named Chancellor Goth. What's next? Mayor Emo?) The Doctor didn't actually claim the presidency until a year later, when he decided the best way to prevent an invasion of Gallifrey was by helping the invaders take over, and THEN defeating them. Despite being the only president to turn his inauguration into a party for marauding tinfoil monsters, the Doctor was popular enough that the Gallifreyans begged him to take office again.

Brainwash everybody in the country via telepathic satellite. It worked for the Master, the Doctor's nemesis, on Doctor Who. Maybe because the Master was so impressed by the Doctor's election-stealing prowess, the Master stepped up his game and got himself elected Prime Minister of Great Britain, thanks to the Archangel satellite network broadcasting pro-Master messages into people's brains.

Brainwash everybody in the country via telephone. Satellite too high-tech for you? There's always Ma Bell. That's what worked for Tempus, an escaped alien psychopath, who came to Earth under the fake name John Doe and ran for president in Lois And Clark: The New Adventures Of Superman. Tempus used his amazing alien technology to control everyone's minds via telephone, making everyone think he was a "darn nice guy." Everybody voted for him — except those telephone-hating Amish people.

Replace both candidates with green slimy aliens. As various commenters pointed out, I somehow forgot to include Kang and Kodos in my roundup — how could I have forgotten them? Finally, two candidates who behave with a modicum of decency and respect towards each other. So what if they're evil monster guys? What are you going to do — vote for a third-party candidate? Oh, and they're from the Simpsons.

Hit everybody in the country with an Acid trip. It sort of worked for the Brotherhood of Dada, enemies of the Doom Patrol. Their leader, Mr. Nobody, decided to run for president, and harnessed the power of Number None, who's a hallucinogenic bicycle linked to the discovery of LSD. (This was when writer Grant Morrison was doing a LOT of drugs, I think.) The Brotherhood traveled around the country in a psychedelic bus, causing acid trips, and finally went on television to spread the Dada message.

Something similar worked for Max Frost in the campy 1968 movie Wild In The Streets — he got elected president partly by spiking the D.C. water supply with LSD. When he won in a landslide, he passed a new law saying everyone over 30 had to live in retirement homes and do LSD every day. Far out, baby!

Discover a parallel world which solves all our problems. In the Philip K. Dick novel The Crack In Space, Jim Briskin is running to be the first black president of the United States — in 2080. (That's optimism for you.) Briskin's campaign gets a tremendous boost when a gateway opens to a parallel Earth, where humans never evolved. It's the perfect solution to the overpopulation problem, and Briskin capitalizes on it. (This one's a bit iffy, but I still like it.)

Manipulate probability itself to make the improbable happen. In the Justice League of America comic, Dr. Julian September split seven photons, and discovered that he'd managed to destroy their synchronicity, allowing him to manipulate probability to his liking. Among other things, this allowed him to become president of the United States and win a Nobel Prize. Eventually the Justice League found those photons and rejoined them.

Use telepathy. In Marvel's New Universe comics, a supervillain known as Philip Nolan Voigt, aka Overshadow, used his telepathic abilities to be come the president of the United States in the 1988 election. His running mate? A mind-controlled puppet Mike Dukakis. (Probably the only way Dukakis could look presidential, actually.)

Disguise a whole bunch of candidates as one candidate. That way, you get one composite candidate who's better prepared, and more well-rounded, than any one person. That's how they cheat in the story "The Election," by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Shaara. In the year 2066, a computer called Uncle Sam administers a series of tests to find the person who's most qualified to become U.S. President. But the presidency has become so complex, the computer can no longer find anyone who's qualified. So the authorities secretly have a bunch of experts in different fields take the test in their subjects, and pretend to be one super-qualified person.

A similar stunt worked great in a novel I read years ago, but now can't find any information on, including the title. A group of identical clones run for president and pretend to be one person, dazzling crowds with their multi-faceted brilliance.

Get someone who knows how to control machines with his mind. That's what Linderman did on Heroes, to ensure that Nathan Petrelli became a U.S. Congressman at the end of the first season. Micah, the kid who can make any machine do his bidding, interfaced with the electronic voting system and added a quadrillion extra votes for Nathan. Because who would ever vote for "flying man" otherwise?

Implant a brain chip in your candidate that lets you tweak his message in real time. Can't believe I forgot this one, since it's one of my fave novels — thanks to Fanfilmbook (among others) for bringing it up. In the novel Interface, which Neal Stephenson co-wrote with his uncle George Jewsbury, Illinois governor William Cozzano suffers a stroke and a shadowy business coalition called the Network has a chip implanted in him. Ostensibly, it's to heal him from his stroke, but it actually allows the Network to control what he's saying in real time. If his speech isn't going over well with audiences, they can jolt him in a different direction. Puppet candidate FTW!

Hack the vote. The scenario in Robert Heinlein's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress is a bit hard to swallow — who would ever believe that people would trust electronic voting machines with no paper audit trail? Nevertheless, that's what happens in the lunar election, allowing the supercomputer Mike to steal the vote in favor of his libertarian buddies. Something similar worked for Robert A. Booth, the final president of the United States, who won reelection in the Judge Dredd comics by sabotaging the voting computers. Luckily, it could never happen in real life.

Additional reporting by Katharine Duckett.

• Y: The Last Man: Every male on Earth, human or otherwise, has died from mysterious causes... except for Yorick Brown and his monkey. This all happens in the first issue, and the entire series is about how the remaining women deal with a planet devoid of men. The series will wrap up this year, so if you haven't checked it out, try out issue #1 and you'll have plenty of time to catch up.
• NYC2123: Set in 2123 in a Manhattan that was devastated by a tsunami 70 years ago, the post-apocalyptic survivors struggle to continue living. This comic was originally conceived for Sony's PlayStation Portable and distributed under a Creative Commons license, although you can now read it online and check out the fantastically stark artwork.
• The War of the Worlds: Dark Horse Comics has the entire graphic novel adaptation of this scifi classic online, and it looks pretty vibrant even on a laptop screen. The art looks similar to Kevin O'Neil's in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and the Victorian-era story is a favorite of Moore's, so you'll only feel two steps slightly removed from one of his works.
• Doom Patrol: Grant Morrison's take on this superteam from DC Comics past went well beyond the envelope and into the realm of the bizarre. He had god-like supervillains, heroes who could only use their powers when asleep, and of course, Robotman... the lone holdout from the 1960s who has appeared in every version of Doom Patrol. This is some vintage Morrison at his best and most wacky.
• DMZ: This comic book about a civil war raging in the United States in the near future follows a journalist who has become trapped behind the Free States and the United States in the demilitarized zone that is Manhattan. It's not just a comic book, but it's also a harsh political statement about our current government practices.
• Swamp Thing: This title was fading fast and heading into obscurity when DC agreed to let relatively unknown scribe Alan Moore have a crack at it. He rewrote the origin of the character, so he no longer came from chemical origins but was instead a plant elemental. However, we'll forgive him that transgression, since he brought back The Floronic Man, who was bonded to plants through chemicals.
• Chaos PhD: This tribute to the silver age of comic books features very well-drawn art, tongue in cheek humor, and of course supervillains and capes. Plus, a well done web interface that makes it easy to read.
• 1984: George Orwell's classic novel about the future as a free webcomic? Big Brother would not be pleased. Particularly with those other websites you've been visiting on your filthy little computer.