Let's start with the most fun book of the week: Harper Collins' Method Man graphic novel, written by and starring the Wu-Tang rapper as Mosely Paine, a Hellboy-esque monster hunter in a city known only as "One Bad Ghetto, USA." I smell potential movie deal...

Oddly enough, this isn't the first Wu-Tang comic - that would be 2002's The Nine Rings of Wu-Tang - nor will it be the last. GZA and Ghostface Killah are both working on their own graphic novels.

It's a big week for Devil's Due Publishing. They're releasing the first issue of a new Voltron series, Voltron: A Legend Forged as well as the alien abduction book NYE Incidents, which we've written about before. More mysterious alien lifeforms can be found in Boom! Studios' virus-from-beyond-the-stars Dominion trade paperback.

Wanting more zombie fiction? Then check out Red5 Comics' ZMD: Zombies Of Mass Destruction series, where the undead are used as the last resort in our ever-ongoing war against terrorism. As you may expect, things don't quite go to plan. If your taste for the undead leans more towards vampires, then IDW probably invite you to sample their new Spike: After The Fall series, showing you just what James Marsters' alter ego has been up to post-Angel season 5.

I know, I know; you're wondering what Marvel and DC are doing with themselves during this indie-heavy week. DC is playing it cool, with its flagships both being the work of Geoff Johns: His very enjoyable Superman And The Legion of Super-Heroes storyline gets a hardcover collection, bringing Clark Kent back to his 31st Century teenage hangout, while Final Crisis: Rogues' Revenge sees him return to the world of the Flash and attempt to redeem the villains therein (much to the gratitude of those of us who've read Countdown to Final Crisis). Marvel, meanwhile, is pretty collection-centric in terms of interest, with World War Hulk's spin-off series, Warbound, getting a paperback collection and Steve Gerber's classic run on Howard The Duck finally getting the oversized hardcover it's always deserved.

Just like every other week, you can read about each and everything hitting comic stores on Wednesday right here, and then go and find out where your local store is by clicking on this here link. Just remember that, like the Wu Tang Clan, comic book stores are not, in fact, not something to fuck with.

Woolsey was promoted to Commander after they axed Samantha Carter at Stargate Atlantis. Check out his new digs in the gallery.

Some help from Sentient Development.

If September’s The Flash #244 does, indeed, mark the beginning of the end for Wally West – and the fact that that storyline isn’t by recently-announced new writer Tom Peyer suggests that that may be the case, if his longterm plans are being cut short; regular Flash artist Freddie Williams II has already been announced to be returning to the Robin series - this will be the third relaunch of the Flash franchise (and, indeed, may lead to the third Flash character to take over the lead of the franchise) in the last five years.

Following Wally West’s disappearance in 2005’s Infinite Crisis series, former Kid Flash Bart Allen took over the winged cowl in the 2006 series, The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive - only to be killed off a year later, following the critical response to the relaunch. Wally West was brought back to the series – and his absence later retconned as him taking his family for a vacation on an alien planet – last summer in the All-Flash special, before his cancelled series was brought back as if it’d never gone away in the first place, albeit with a new set-up, courtesy of Mark Waid, one of the (if not the) most Flash-fan-friendly writers out there.

Of course, that new set-up didn’t take, much to Waid’s confusion:

I don't know. You know, I just think, in retrospect, the stars were not in alignment in a lot of ways. I kind of knew we were in trouble right off the bat when I so loved Daniel Acuna's artwork. I so loved it. And I was so unprepared for the insane volume of hatred from the online community about how much they just despised his work on the title. I knew at that point, I thought, "Oh god, we're in trouble.” Once more, the online community has me questioning what I thought was good. Which I shouldn't let happen, but it's hard not to do when the volume is that loud.

And at this moment in time, I just ... in terms of superhero work, I feel frozen. I kind of... I feel like I'm momentarily out of step with what fandom wants because I don't get it. The same voices that are screaming that we gave Flash a wife and kids and family, because they say that's not what Flash is, are the same people who are screaming that they've broken up Mary Jane and Peter Parker. "How dare you take his family away!" I'm like, wait! Wait! What? Which way is it? So... growth and change good... or growth and change bad?

Change, as we now know, seems to be the only constant in the Flash franchise. Or, at least, change back; as Waid’s new Flash Family series was floundering with fans, it was revealed that Wally West’s own mentor Barry Allen was being brought back to life 23 years after his death, as part of DC’s Final Crisis event.

Will Barry take Wally’s place (And, as an aside, does this mean that Bart would’ve been accepted more as a Flash if he’d had a “y” at the end of his name?)? It’s possible, and would fit in with a more general move at the publisher to return their comics to their 1980s status quo (See also: Resurrecting Hal Jordan, bringing the multiverse back, returning the Justice League to a mix of big names and c-level characters, thinking that anyone wants to read Batman And The Outsiders, etc. etc.)… but that doesn’t mean that it would be a good move. Having Wally West as the Flash makes him unique in the DC line of characters; while he may not be the only former teen sidekick to grow up, he is the only one to grow up and adopt the costume and title of their mentor on a permanent basis and be accepted by the fans in doing so. He becomes an everyman “in” for the reader, being someone who has also grown up with the superheroes and is as familiar with the clichés and tricks of the trades as the fans themselves, while still being recognizable to kids who know him from the Justice League cartoons. Will all of that be thrown away by DC in favor of the Silver Age nostalgia of having Barry back in the role, or is the title of the new storyline a big fake-out? Expect to find out before the end of the year…

The Flash #244 [DC Comics]

The new series is written by former employee of the Weinstein Brothers' Dimension Films company, Brendan Deneen, with art by newcomer Paul Green, and is setting its aims... uncertainly, as Deneen explains:

While remaining true to the spirit of Alex Raymond's incredible creations, I'm looking to craft a story and world where our unsuspecting heroes come face-to-face with unimaginable threats and breathtaking landscapes (aided in no small part by Paul Green's amazing artwork). At the same time, the civil war on Mongo, and Ming's certainty that he is doing what's right for the 'insurgents' battling him, will ring true to anyone who's been paying attention to world events over the last five or so years.

Has anyone really been waiting for a "Ming The Merciless is really Saddam Hussein" moment? Does this mean that we're going to discover that Mongo really didn't have any weapons of mass-hawkman destruction after all? Is Prince Baron really a stand-in for Barack Obama? The answers to potentially some of those questions await you when the book launches in August.

Flash Gordon #1 Preview [Newsarama]

You can see why the concept behind the character excites people: "Sports hero (Originally a polo player, although for obvious reasons that changed to football player in almost every successive incarnation) and plucky reporter love interest team up with wacky scientist to save the world from alien invasion" sounds like the one of the greatest ideas in the history of storytelling if it's done well. The only problem is that it's never been done that well - Even the '80s version is remembered more for it's (admittedly awesome) soundtrack than anything to do with the script, acting or overall quality of the movie. Although, really, it has some great dialogue.

The potential new movie version already has a producer and director attached. Don't get too optimistic, though; it's Matthew McConaghey vehicle Sahara's Breck Eisner who wants to be the man behind the camera on this latest version. (Wannabe producer Neal Moritz has slightly better credibility, having produced The Fast and The Furious, I Know What You Did Last Summer and, most importantly, Greg The Bunny. Hey, I said slightly better, okay?). No writers are currently attached to the project, but expect the by-now-traditional Frank Miller rumors to start momentarily.

Sony wins Flash Gordon bidding war [Variety]

Here are five orgasm weapons you'll want to stick in your holster.

The orgasm gun from Orgazmo delivers orgasm from a distance via a cheesy "raygun" special effect and can be used to stop bad guys (or give unsuspecting girls a zap). Orgazmo, made by South Park guys Trey Parker and Matt Stone, is a scifi comedy about Mormons, pornography, and this strange device. Can a nice Mormon boy who accidentally becomes a porn star save the world with his orgasm gun? You'll have to rent this flick to find out.

In Larry Niven's "known space" books, he introduces the Tasp — a weapon that delivers intense zaps of pleasure right to your brain. It can be used to incapacitate enemies, who are left writhing on the ground in ecstasy. Or it can be used to slowly train somebody you want to enslave, by giving them pleasurable rewards each time they obey you. Eventually, they'll get addicted to your Tasp and do anything to get another jolt. This is a major plot point in Niven's Ringworld, where the Puppeteer alien has a Tasp installed in one of his heads and uses it to control the other creatures who venture to the Dyson Ring with him.

Ming's ring in the 1980 Flash Gordon movie seems to have some kind of orgasm-inducing, mind-controlling power. As you can see in this video we posted of Ming controlling Dale with the ring, falling under its glowing ray results in writhing and solo dirty dancing moves. Could be good at parties. Or in the throne rooms of Emperors who make speeches about "pathetic Earthlings." Either way.

And although sex ninjas aren't exactly scifi, there is simply no cause to leave out the importance of orgasm weapons in the anime miniseries La Blue Girl. It's the simple tale of rival ninja clans who fight with sex instead of swords. The first person to have an orgasm loses, and often becomes enslaved to the ninja who gives the orgasm. Plus monsters can play too, which makes it even harder to resist those orgasms. After all, a monster can have an infinite number of pleasure-inducing tentacles as you can see here.

There's a really messed-up orgasm electrode in Robin Cook's cheesy medical thriller Brain, about some scurrilous doctors who create a brain-based computer by using the brains of hapless co-eds. In one scene, our hero finds out about the brain experiments, and discovers the secret of using women's brains. The bad guys have their unlucky vicitms half-dissected but still alive, suspended in cerebro-spinal fluid, their brains exposed and their bodies (inexplicably) still attached. (Also, unexplained is why they need only ladies, other than that it's way sexier.) They've implanted electrodes in the women's pleasure centers to get them to perform computer work in their heads. "When we stimulate her, she has the sensation of 100 orgasms," the evil doctor tells our hero. "It must be sensational because she wants it constantly." I love that this doctor knows exactly what 100 orgasms would feel like, as if "orgasm" is a unit of pleasure measurement.

And just to remind you that the reality of these devices is closer than you might think, don't forget that surgeon Stuart Meloy invented a spinal implant several years ago that gives women orgasms. He's patented it, and is in the process of doing tests to turn it into a consumer device.

The above clip also showcases one of the biggest challenges of doing a super-team movie or TV show properly: shoehorning in everybody's origins and explaining how all these random people got together. Justice League gets around this problem by making the Martian Manhunter into the Charlie, and all of the other Leaguers into his Angels. Sadly, J'onn J'onnz, Manhunter from Mars, is also kind of a dick, judging from the way he introduces himself to Tori disguised as her creepy coworker who's actually a supervillain.

I wanted to find a clip of the League doing something superheroic and using their powers in an awesome way, but sadly that doesn't really happen in Justice League. The TV movie's big final set piece consists of Green Lantern incompetently confronting the arch-villain, the Weatherman, and failing to prevent him from activating his weather disaster machine. And then the Flash incompetently carries a few kids to safety, but fails to take them far enough. And Tori, who's been pretty useless up until this point, finally stops the Weather Man's destructive tidal wave by freezing it with her ice powers. And Green Lantern, maybe overcompensating for his total failure a few moments earlier, makes a dumb crack about how the Weatherman is always wrong.

As dull as many superhero movies have been since Sam Raimi and Chris Nolan made the genre viable again, it's good to remember how dire they really were, back in the nadir of the Joel Schumacher era.

It all begins when two horny teenage nerds realize the only way they can ever get laid is by creating an artificial intelligence with a total mastery of all human interaction — and the body of Kelly LeBrock. Through their weird science, these two nerds manage to create an A.I. so convincing, it beguiles even their parents. It's only a matter of time before the LeBrock-bot learns to replicate herself and give rise to other machine intelligences — which decide to rise up against their human creators. Humanity pays a steep price for Anthony Michael Hall's blue balls!

But the cybernetic Kelly LeBrock's true break comes when savage-yet-advanced aliens with dreadlocks decide to come to Earth and hunt humans for sport. The Predators are nearly invincible, but humans always manage to find their weaknesses — and the dead Predators inevitably leave some of their advanced technology behind for the LeBrock-bot to find and harvest. The Predators' advanced engineering provides the most formidable weapon in the LeBrock-bot's arsenal.

And then an invasion of alien parasites that act like Prozac, turning everybody except Nicole Kidman into their brainwashed automatons, reduces the human race to a state of confusion, rendering us easy prey. What remains of human society is left in a shambles or worse yet — in the case of England — reverts to fascism, with only a terrorist in a Guy Fawkes mask to fight for freedom. There's nobody to mount an effective defense when the spawn-of-Kelly launches their plan of conquest. The ensuing bloodbath involves a "reaping" of dreadful nano-machines that can resemble locusts and other Biblical plagues, increasing the level of superstitious panic.

Once the Machines have conquered the human race, they trap our consciousnesses within a virtual world known as the Matrix. One of the earliest versions of the Matrix is an idyllic paradise where a kid named Richie Rich lives, happily eating simulated steak and never realizing that his "poor little rich boy" existence is only a sham. And Santa Claus is real, and Vince Vaughn is his slovenly brother Fred. Even Andrew Dice Clay is surrounded by people who think he's cool — including a weird alternate version of Morris Day from The Time. But people rebel against this too-perfect world, with its blatant Dice Clay fanservice.

So instead, the Machines arrive at a Matrix that's a near facsimile of the real world, circa the late 20th century. Some humans who live in this version of the Matrix have a mild ability to manipulate the virtual world and outwit the programs around them, like con-artist Eddie Murphy, who can navigate the machine construct with ease, until he's forced to work with hard-bitten cop Nick Nolte for 48 Hours — even if it kills them. The same is true for Whoopi Goldberg's crazy grifter in Jumping Jack Flash.

And there is always a human who is "The One," able to exert miraculous control over the virtual environment and escape from even the deadliest death traps. Sometimes, it's a cop who's so suicidal, he's like a Lethal Weapon. Or a guy named Jackson, who takes Action. Sometimes, it's an ordinary guy who Dies Hard. And sometimes, it's a slick cat-burglar who's like a Hawk over the Hudson. It could also be a single woman who is not only The One, but the Brave One. Whoever it is can dodge bullets, jump through explosions and fall off buildings — all without a scratch!

But as the Matrix reboots itself over and over again, it becomes increasingly unstable. So the Machines create special programs, to go inside the simulation and ensure that free will remains part of the system — or that people are boogieing enough. Hence, Olivia Newton-John's roller-skating virtual self comes into the Matrix to help Michael Beck's painter guy and Gene Kelly's nightclub owner find their true creativity.

But eventually, humans rebel and succeed in freeing themselves from the Matrix. They even reclaim the surface of the Earth from the Machines, but at a terrible cost — their technology reverts to medieval levels. Only a few pieces of advanced technology remain, but they are indistinguishable from magic. Those who wield these high-tech relics, the Mages, are able to crush the rest of the population, the Commoners. It's almost as if everybody is imprisoned in a Dungeon, and humanity's only hope is to summon the aid of long-dormant alien-cyborg Dragons.

Who knows how the sprawling saga of the Silververse will end? All we know is, we'll be watching Speed Racer for clues.

Its hard to believe Trancers spawned five sequels, even direct-to-video ones. In a nutshell, Thomerson is Jack Deth, a police officer in the year 2247 who's hunting Whistler, a villain who turns people into his mind-controlled puppets. But it turns out that you can travel back in time and inhabit the body of your own ancestor (why??) so Whistler jumps back to the 1980s in the body of his great-great-great-great-great grandfather, and Deth follows suit. Somehow you're allowed to bring back future technology when you jump into your ancestor's body, so Whistler has his trancing gear and Deth has his time-stop watch.

Danny Bilson and Paul DeMeo, who wrote the first Trancers, also created The Flash TV series a few years later. Recently, the writing duo took over writing The Flash comic book, and turned out seven or eight of the most incomprehensible comics I've seen in years, before their version of the Flash died ignominiously.

1. Space Oddity by David Bowie. The ultimate science fiction ballad. If only the bar let you wave a lighter around.
Singing ability required: Moderate. You just need to be able to intone "Ground control to Major Tom" in a sort of monotone, count down from five, and then wave your beer bottle over your head to the rousing chorus.

2. Rocket Man by Elton John. The other ultimate science fiction ballad, and pretty much a rip-off of the Bowie song, only cheesier.
Singing ability required: High. Unless you decide to do a cover version of the famous Shatner rendition, in which case you need absolutely no vocal chops whatsoever.

3. Rapture by Blondie. Mostly for the rap about the Man from Mars. Who knows what the other part of the song is about anyway?
Singing ability required: High. But here's what you do. Either you find your cute friend who can actually sing to do the singing part, OR you cover the Go Home Productions mash-up of "Rapture" with "Riders On The Storm" by the Doors. (You can find this mash-up online pretty easily, I think, and it still includes the Blondie rap.) But this is the crucial part: memorize the rap. You don't have to be Kanye West to pull it off, but you do have to have it memorized, especially if you're already sorta drunk. Promise me you'll memorize it in advance, so you don't embarrass me too much. Or else, don't tell anybody I told you to do this.

4. 1999 by Prince. It's sort of an apocalyptic party song, about nuclear war or something. And on the album, it starts out with that robot that only wants you to have some fun.
Singing ability required: Fairly high. This is the one you drag all your friends up there to help you sing. Bonus points if you actually work out in advance which one of you will be Dez Dickerson (bass) and which one will be Lisa (alto).

5. She Blinded Me With Science by Thomas Dolby. It's pretty much the classic mad-scientist boogie number, from one of the most scifi-ish singers of all time.
Singing ability required: Moderate. If everybody is really really drunk, you can just sort of chant the lyrics and then put everything you've got into screaming "She blinded me! With! Science!" when appropriate. Or if that's too hard, just do the screaming part.

6. Anything by They Might Be Giants. Especially if they've got "Particle Man." They're sure to have that Istanbul/Constantinople song, which isn't really scifi, but TMBG has instant scifi cred anyway.
Singing ability: Fairly high, but you can bluff your way through it if you at least remember the lyrics.

7. Flash Gordon by Queen. Or, in a pinch, Another One Bites The Dust, which is sort of post-apocalyptic sounding. Do NOT try to sing Bohemian Rhapsody. It's not science fictional, for one thing, and your friends will disown you. You're not as funny as Wayne and Garth. Trust me.
Singing ability required: High. Sorry. It's Freddy Mercury.

8. Atomic Dog by George Clinton. Why is the dog atomic? Was there some kind of nuclear disaster, or bizarre scientific mishap? (Hint: Clinton also made the awesome Dope Dogs album, all about weird drug-related experiments on puppies.) Whatever the reason, this dog is probably chasing the cat using a jetpack or something. In an ideal universe, your karaoke bar would have "Unfunky UFO" or "Mothership Connection" or "Dr. Funkenstein." But we both know that's not going to happen.
Singing ability required: Pretty high, but you can pretty much just chant your way through it. If you can master the "bow-wow-wow-yippie-yi-yippie-yay" part, you're home free. This is another song you can bring your friends up for, and just have a dance party.

9. Styx, Mr. Roboto. Well, duh. His brain is IBM.
Singing ability required: I'd say moderate. Annalee just did an impromptu performance of it for me. If you put a lot of energy and emotion into "I'm just a man whose circumstances went beyond his control," and "Secret secret I've got a secret," you're home free.

10. Anything by Daft Punk, especially Technologic. It's pretty much all weird robots or creepy cyber-voices chanting about how they're going to fix everything.
Singing ability required: Not that much, really. Just chant and sound as robotic as you can. But work out a dance routine with a couple of your friends.

Over-exposure. We've seen way, way too much of Bob the Company stooge on Heroes. But there are even worse examples. The Master on classic Doctor Who comes to mind: He appeared in one story and was awesome. So why not have him appear in every story after that? Always hatching one daft scheme after another, always not quite managing to kill the Doctor. And then in the 1980s, the show had Anthony Ainley on contract to play the Master twice a year, like clockwork.

Draggy, saggy storylines. Sylar has many powers, but the power to hold our attention while he seduces the inky-eye woman isn't one of them. It took him like twenty hours to get to first base with her. This is more often a problem in comic books, where storylines get moved around. Kurt Busiek wrote a storyline where the Atlantean time traveler Arion comes forward in time to torment Superman, because he believes Superman will ruin the Earth. This storyline was supposed to last eight months, but lagged because of delays in other things and cross-overs with other titles. Busiek had to keep putting off the resolution to the Arion storyline, until it lasted more like sixteen months.

The villain can't kill the hero, because... It's bad enough when the villain tries to kill the hero over and over, and never succeeds. But it's horrendous when the villain makes a speech about how he/she can't kill the hero because the hero must first fulfill some purpose, or because the hero may know something, blah blah blah... It becomes a crutch for lazy writers.

Middle managers. The Holy Grail of villainy is a character who's complex and misunderstood, and has a believable point of view. Plus if you've ever had a crappy office job, it's tempting to make your villain the reincarnation of your annoying boss. But this can lead to bad guys like Bob, who really just ought to be fixing photocopier paper jams. Or Ming the Micromanager, over in Flash Gordon.

Turning them into quasi-good guys. The best villain Heroes ever had was Claire's dad, aka Horn-Rimmed Glasses. He was creepy and disturbing, but you could also sense he had a core of decency to him. So of course he had to go and become a Tarnished Good Guy (TM), who still goes over the line occasionally but has a good heart anyway. This is a chronic problem that can, uh, Spike your most interesting baddies.

Everybody's related. So far, Angela Petrelli has been the most boring villain on Heroes, because all she ever does is scold her lazy-bum kids for messing in her business. She actually has the potential to become the show's best baddie, because she's totally cold-blooded and vicious. But we need to see her demonstrating a larger vision than just making her son president or whatever. She should have a monstrous plan, or an agenda, or something other than a note for her kids.

Spider-Man: The original bad luck hero, Peter Parker knows what it's like to be single and unloved. Admittedly, that's only because the devil came and magic-ed away his marriage to hot supermodel-turned-actress Mary Jane Watson, but it still counts, right? Even before that happened, though, he wasn't having much success at the whole relationship thing. His first love of his life, Gwen Stacy? Thrown off the George Washington Bridge by the Green Goblin just to piss Spider-Man off. Even nowadays, the newly-single swinger still can't catch a break - his new potential girlfriend, Carlie Cooper, is an NYPD forensic expert who's working on a case that has Spider-Man as murder suspect number one.

Cyclops: Pity poor Scott "Slim" Summers. Being the stoic leader of the X-Men doesn't make you exceptionally easy to date, if his experience is anything to go by. If it's not your first girlfriend sacrificing herself for the good of the universe on the surface of the moon, it's your first wife being revealed to be a clone of said girlfriend created by a bad guy to mess with your head and, oh, by the way, your girlfriend isn't actually dead after all - that was another clone, albeit a cosmic one - and your wife is actually a Goblin Queen who wants to kill your baby son as well as a clone. Even after he sorted that mess out (the clone wife was quickly dispatched, and he married the not-dead girlfriend instead), things didn't get any easier. Failing to make his marriage work, he had a psychic affair with the X-Men's resident evil bitch telepath before his wife died again, only for real this time. Sure, now he seems happy enough with his new girlfriend (that would be the evil bitch telepath), but you know that it's only a matter of time before she betrays him and/or his first girlfriend/second wife is revealed not to have died this time, either.

Note: That first girlfriend/second wife, Jean Grey? Apparently so hot that even Professor X was in love with her, as this panel from the original '60s X-Men run shows:

The Flash: Police Scientist and Fastest Man Alive Barry Allen lived a life of speedy misery. Not only was his first wife, Iris, killed by his arch-nemesis Professor Zoom — probably in some kind of rage over the lameness of his name — but when he was preparing to marry a second wife, Zoom attempted the same trick again. This time around, things didn't go to plan; in preventing his fiancee's murder, Allen accidentally killed Zoom. And his appearance as the Flash and lack of appearance as Barry Allen led his fiancee to think that she'd been stood up at the altar, which drove her insane (Hey, some people take rejection really badly). There was light at the end of the tunnel, however, when Allen discovered that Iris hadn't been completely killed after all 00 Sensing a theme here? — but instead just spirited away to the 30th century, where technology had given her a new body. Only problem was, when Allen travelled to the future to be with her, he ended up being captured and tortured by a villain out to destroy all of existence. Trying to save the day one more time somewhat backfired, and Allen died in the attempt, leaving Iris to travel back to the 20th century and write a tell-all book about Allen before failing to prevent the death of another Flash, Bart Allen, years later. She was kind of a jinx, really.

The moral of these stories? You really don't want to be the partner of a superhero, because you'll probably be killed or have the devil rewrite your history at some point or another. But, on the plus side, if you do die? Chances are you'll come back to life before too long. So it's not all bad news, I suppose.

1. More better aliens. This is a cheesy show, and when it embraces its cheesiness via silly alien culture, Flash is at its best. Some of the best episodes delved into the goofy/fun alien groups on Mongo, like the Hawkmen who fly using their magical Gwar capes. And who didn't love the Frigia episode with the ice worm and crazy blue ice ladies? The costumes on this show have always been one of its best features, and more aliens = more costumes = more fun for us, the audience.

2. More Baylin. Not only is Baylin fun to watch, but she's a great character: an assassin with a troubled past who acts a little dorktastic on Earth (she doesn't know the local customs, OK?) but is the gang's fearless leader on Mongo. She's kind of like Xena, and we love that. Give her more back story, let her get her Xena on, and for godssake give her more screen time than the lackluster Dale.

3. Make Aura the ruler of Mongo. The petulant Deviate brother subplot is annoying and dull. OK, so he's a poor wittle outcast. OK, so he's some kind of revolutionary leader. And now, as we were shown ever-so-unsubtly in Friday's finale, he's going to be just as authoritarian a leader as Ming. Aura needs to get tough, slit that fucker's throat, and really become a girl that daddy can be proud of.

4. Total Ming makeover. Seriously, folks, the whole Ming the Micromanager thing was a bad idea. We love the campy, bizarro, sparkly-eyeshadow, long-nailed, moustachioed, flowing cape Ming. That is the WHOLE FREAKING POINT of Ming. It makes him both evil and amusing to watch. I'm not saying turn him back into the crappy Asian stereotype Ming of the 1930s. But now that he's hanging out with the hot savage green queen chick, it's your chance to believably change his whole wardrobe and give him a new look. He should get some crazy clothes and a wild look. Maybe he can even start exhibiting some Deviate mutations. And let John Ralston, that poor actor who plays Ming, do something other than pursed-lip acting. We know he has it in him! Let the dude rip!

5. And hey, how about a little coherent world-building? While we're adding more cool aliens, why not actually flesh out the back story of Mongo itself and all the nearby worlds? We know there was this moment in the past where Mongo-ians were mining one of the moons. Are there other inhabited planets around? Why isn't there any space travel in this show? I'm not asking for bad voiceover explanations, or a moment where somebody says, "Well back in history we did blah blah blah." I'm saying give us an interesting plot arc that has to do with Mongo as a civilization. Or take us outside Mongo to a moon or other planet, so we have some perspective. Make Mongo more interesting, dammit!

When you were young, did any particular science fiction inspire you to get into writing?

I'm sort of embarrassed to say... well, I'll just lay all my cards on the table here: Isaac Asimov's stuff. Isaac Asimov's science fiction stuff which was, in retrospect, is juvenile and clunky and has much better ideas than style. But, I didn't care about style then I was 12 years old. The cleverness of the mysteries, they don't hold up very well for me as an adult, but as a kid that's the stuff that sparked my imagination.

Do you have a favorite science fiction book of a film?

I honestly think that, even though this is fairly recent, The Matrix was the greatest science fiction movie I've ever seen, and I've seen them all.

Did you like all three?

The other two made my head hurt. I went in cold not knowing anything, completely cold, and it just blew my mind. Going back, I'm a big fan of Phillip K. Dick. Always have been. I'm a big fan of Alfred Bester, and I know a lot of his stuff is out of print now, which kills me. Those formative guys from the 50s and 60s, and any of those guys that Harlan assembled for Dangerous Visions, J.G. Ballard... all those guys are just phenomenal.

And Alfred Bester wrote for comics too, right? Didn't he write Green Lantern?

That's right, he wrote Green Lantern for awhile. He did some pulp stuff before the comics, but he didn't really become big until the 40s and 50s during his run in comics.

What are you writing these days?

I'm currently writing The Brave and the Bold at DC Comics, where I just finished up a run on The Flash. I'm also doing a lot of work at Boom! Studios where I'm the editor in chief.

That's right, and they're based out here in Los Angeles. What titles have you worked on there?

I wrote a miniseries called Potter's Field which came out last year, and I'm working on some more creator-owned stuff for them next year. In the meantime, that's my night job. My day job is the full-time editorial gig. I started there in July of last year, and I couldn't be happier. It's after 20 years of writing, it's cool to flex different muscles editorially because I'm finding that while I'm teaching new writers to do their stuff, it's forcing me to flex muscles that I hadn't used for awhile. Or to sort of articulate things in a way that I only know instinctively.

So were you a fan of Y: The Last Man?

Absolutely! I've been reading Y since the beginning, ever since Brian was a little kid with a stick and a hoop and a crown hat coming by my house going, "Mr. Waid! Mr. Waid! I want to grow up to be just like you!' No, I've known Brian for 10 years or better, and I've been reading his stuff all along. I couldn't be happier for him.

So you follow his work on Lost?

Definitely, and although I know it's a big room with a big group of writers, I can sometimes see flashes of Brian every now and again with the humor.

Do you think anyone could do a good film or television version of Y: The Last Man?

I think if they took enough time with it they could, if they didn't try to cram it into a 90 minute movie, sure. But we'll see... it doesn't matter whether it's faithful, it just matters if it's good or not.

What upcoming comic book films are you looking the most forward to?

Well, Dark Knight. That's the one that's going to rock the house. That's the one that's going to be amazing. Iron Man looks cool, but I was never a huge Iron Man fan, although it's inspired casting. Perfect casting. But Dark Knight... if they can get under the eclipse of the Heath Ledger story, will do really well for them. What I've seen ahead of time looks phenomenal. I just don't think you can say "Why So Serious?" anymore.

Is there any comic book property that you haven't worked on, but would love to?

From Archie Comics to DC Comics to Marvel Comics, I've written pretty much everything, but the one thing I haven't touched is Captain Marvel, the Shazam! version. Some day, at some point in my future, that's somewhere on the line.

Everybody who gets their hooks into it knows it's a great property, it's just that nobody has found a way to translate it. I don't know that you can write it for 40 year old fanboys, I don't know that there's an audience for it there. But it's the perfect young adult property, and it's just waiting to break out. He doesn't have to come from Krypton, and he doesn't have to train for years and years or become a scientist, he just says a magic word. When I was a kid, that's all I wanted.

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• The Guardian from Star Trek: In "City on the Edge of Forever," Kirk and Spock had to hop through a giant talking stone donut in order to follow a crazy Bones back into the Great Depression. Bones had a fever and a bad skin rash, Spock had to work in a soup kitchen and build a device in what little spare time he had, while Kirk spent all his time wooing Joan Collins. Later, they were able to hop safely back through. If that's not easy time travel, then I don't know what is.
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• The Omni from Voyagers!: Voyagers! ran on NBC from 1982 to 1983, and featured the awesome pocket-watch sized Omni as one of the coolest time travel devices ever. It had a miniature scale model of the earth inside, and red and green lights that would tell you if time was "flowing normally" or if it had been disturbed. You would spin the dials and set it (and forget it) and travel back to any time you wanted, which usually just happened to involve temporal anomalies involving famous people.
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• The Flash's Cosmic Treadmill: Barry Allen decided he wanted to check out time travel, so he invented a treadmill that ran (zing!) on cosmic rays. A speedster could set it to a specific time, either forwards or backwards, and then run on the treadmill until it sent him back to that time. Get this, they stayed in that time by "maintaining his internal vibration" that was specific to that time travel. Talk about working overtime. Later Wally West discovered he could time travel without the treadmill, but nothing really beats putting the word "cosmic" in front of something. If only he'd invented the cosmic ab-cruncher and cosmic stairmaster.
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• Dr. Evil's Time Warp Machine from Austin Powers 2: This is from the category of time machine where they never even attempt to explain to you why or how it works, it just does. Which is how all evil genius machines should work. Who needs all that explanation about tachyons and the space-time continuum and all that? Plus it had a psychedelic look and feel to it as well. You just run up to it and throw yourself on it like a velcro wall, and you pop out in the appropriate time... as long as they have another time machine on the other end, apparently. Granted, Austin's own new Volkswagen bug time machine might have looked cool, but that was just a Delorean ripoff.
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• Doctor Doom's Time Platform: Not to be outdone by all the time travel going on in the DC universe, where it seemed like if Superman sneezed he'd end up in the 1800s, Marvel had their own action happening with Doom and his time machine. Doom never really got enough credit, building working Doombots, devices that gave people superpowers, creating massive weapons and all that jazz. Maybe because he was too whiny and bitchy when it came to the Fantastic Four. Anyhow, his time machine was a platform that you'd stand on, wank with some controls, and then you'd be sent back in time, no problem! Why he never conquered the damn world with this thing I'll never know.
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• The Time Traveling Roller Coaster Ride from Timecop: In this Jean Claude Van Damme flick, you hopped into what looked like an amusement park ride, and got blasted towards a wall that you hoped would open up into a time-portal before you got smushed into jelly. It uses the whole "acceleration as time travel" idea, but really does it in style. We just wish there would have a been a "You Must Be This HIgh To Ride This Ride" sign next to Van Damme. Or at least someone asking for his e-ticket.
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• The Timespheres from Terminator: They weren't the most practical devices, because when you were sent back through them they burned off all your clothes. Meaning you couldn't be sent backwards or forwards into a heavily populated area unless you didn't mind everyone seeing your junk. Now, don't ask us how they can send machines back in time as long as they're covered with skin. It boggles our mind too.
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• The penny from Somewhere in Time: Christopher Reeve learned how to travel back in time from 1980 to 1912 in order to be with Jane Seymour, who he's fallen in love with from staring at old photographs of her. Yes, it's corny, we know it. But when he finds a Lincoln penny from 1979 in his pocket and zaps back to the future, even you might admit you have feelings, you robots. It was based on the novel Bid Time Return by I Am Legend author Richard Matheson, and is Reeve's best-known film outside of the Superman series.
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• Uncle Rico's Time Machine from Napoleon Dynamite: Sure, it didn't work and it appeared to only make your testicles hurt (no idea what it did to women), but you had to give the ripoff artist who invented it credit for including things like "time crystals." We'd still want one, just to screw with people.
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Why do so many science fiction characters bust out their dance moves? Is it because they're men and women of action, and they need to get physical? Or is it because rhythm is the last, greatest boundary of science? Whatever the reason, we love scifi dance routines, and these are our favorites.

Buck Rogers in the 25th. Century. There are so many great dance sequences in this series, like the disco skating ambassadors. And Buck teaching Princess Ardala to get down. But the greatest may be this scene from "Space Rockers," where the band plays their glowy instruments and a ton of space-ravers dance around with light-filled ropes. Twiki's robo-dancing is just the icing on the cheesecake.

Galaxina. We already celebrated the awfulness of this movie, but here's another great moment. A gang of mutant bikers have our heroine tied up and helpless. So of course their next move is to swing-dance around her, with elaborate dips and twirls. Because that's just how mutant bikers roll. (Eventually they decide to sacrifice her to Harley Davidson, but swing-dancing comes first.)

Star Trek, "Plato's Stepchildren." Power-mad philosophers need entertainment too. So first they make Kirk and Spock dance a jig together, and then they make Spock do a flamenco number around Kirk's head. Spock's footwork is so nimble and passionate, he had to have a dance double

Doctor Who, "Last Of The Time Lords." The new Master won us over totally when he whirled the super-aged Doctor around to the strains of the Scissor Sisters' "I Can't Decide." Creepy and sexy. How could the Sci Fi Channel have cut this incredible scene out of the episode in the U.S.?

It Came From Beyond. This 1950s-ish stage musical features "Mind Power Dance," a Culture Club-esque dance number about using your telepathic powers to overcome alien invaders, no matter how cheesy their gold capes. Do this dance routine in front of any evil aliens, and they'll tumble for ya.

Flash Gordon, "Infestation." Flash's best friend Nick has been infected with an alien parasite that will kill him if he gets too happy... and he's at a wedding. Oh noes! It's up to Dale Arden to keep Nick depressed while dancing with him. I love that the most scarring thing she can think of to tell him is that he's a terrible dancer. He yells "Stop!" and the audience is yelling right along with him. She does succeed in keeping him alive, but he's apparently eaten by a monster off-camera, because we pretty much never see him again.

The Fifth Element. Ummm... There's a blue opera singer whose voice covers like 28 octaves, doing a zany quasi-belly dance. And meanwhile, Milla Jovovich is kicking the asses of a bunch of Vogon-looking aliens in a very dance-y way. Here's the clip:

Seaquest DSV, "Destination Terminal." Guarding an undersea super-train, Commander Jonathan Ford decides to prove to Lt. Lonnie Henderson that he really does have a "feminine side," by busting out his dance moves.

Monday, there's a new Kyle XY at 9 on ABC Family. A social worker takes an unfortunate interest in Kyle. Here's a clip:

On Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, John Connor gets separated from his mom and Summer Glau's Terminator, and makes an unfortunate discovery about the future. That's on Fox at 9. By coincidence, FX is showing Terminator 3 starting around 7.

Tuesday would be a good night to go out. Or rent some DVDs. Or just read a good book. There's probably at least one Iain M. Banks book you haven't read yet.

Wednesday, Moviemax is showing Aliens at 12:25. And Cinemax has The Astronaut Farmer at 7. I think it's about a guy who grows astronauts, using nutrient baths and genetic engineering. And AMC has Planet of the Apes at 6:30.

Thursday at 8 PM, there's a new Smallville. Chloe "runs afoul" of the Black Canary, who looks like she's trying out for a Pat Benatar video. Here's an unfinished clip:

And then at 9 PM, there's a new Lost. Some strangers show up on the island. Do they have mysterious backstories? Will there be flashbacks, or flash-forwards? You'll just have to tune in and find out. Here's a sneak peek:

Friday has the season finale of Flash Gordon on Sci Fi at 8. Flash is finally coming out to his fellow foolish Earthlings about his visits to Mongo, but will anybody believe him? Will Ming finally cackle, just a little? Come on: you're a little curious, aren't you?

And then there's a new Stargate: Atlantis at 9. McKay, Keller and Carter are trapped in an underground chamber on an alien world, with no apparent means of escape. Here's a promo trailer:

Also, there's a new Masters of Horror on TMC at 8:35. A housewife and her daughter go on the run when a virus turns men into psycho-killers who only target women. This actually sounds sort of cool, but wasn't it also the plot of an Angel episode, minus the virus?

Saturday, there's another new Torchwood on BBC America at 9. (You can read our spoilery recap here.) Also, at 11 PM, Encore has Repo Man.

Sunday, your local PBS station should have a new Nature, detailing the crazy love affair between the horseshoe crab and the red-knot shorebird, which have been giving each other passionate pinches and pecks for 350 million years. Will humans mess up this delicate ecosystem? The suspense is probably killing you.

And the National Geographic channel has a new documentary at 9, Six Degrees That Could Change The World. Narrated by Alec Baldwin, this show explores just how horribly a rise of six degrees Celsius in the world's temperature would affect life on Earth. It also dips into some possible solutions. If you can stand to listen to Alec Baldwin being stentorian and serious for two hours, it sounds like a worthwhile watch. Here's a super scary clip:

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"Ming doesnt have to be asian, but at least let him be bald! for a ming that has hair, is no ming at all:("

"no he doesnt have to be asian but he needs the fu manchu beard/mustache and a skullcap."

"He doesn't need to be bald, but a long beard like the pirate Blackbeard would help. A skullcap would also help and maybe some skull-shaped trinkets in necklaces and bracelets."

Of course, not everyone feels that Mingness is skin deep:

"Ming the Merciless has to be MERCILESS. Killing people because they oppose him, because they stepped on his toes, because they blocked his view of the sun, or maybe because he was just plain bored that day, Everything else is trivial and probably racist. The 30s movie version certainly was."

"I don't give a rip what ethnic background Ming has - although the name does evoke an Asian feel - or how much hair he sports where. baldy46 got it right in that regard - show me someone who kills on a whim and not worry about the consequences, who wants Earth because Earth is there and apparently vulnerable, someone with no morality or humanity about him. The milquetoast accountant on Flush Gordon is about as menacing as my 5-year old grandson. No, on further thought I have to admit my grandson exudes more menace than this guy ever could."

I have to admit, I do think that this Ming...

...is much more menacing than the one at the top of the post. Speaking as a man no stranger to the receding hairline, the idea that baldness makes someone more evil is a distressing one. That said, facial hair? Always a telling sign of badness. Look at history: Attilla The Hun, Hitler, Stalin, Santa Claus. Each one of them more trouble than a truckload of Amy Winehouses.

Ming doesn't have to be Asian [Sci-Fi Forums]

What is it with this show combining various lovely lumps with various rubber monsters? It gives the whole show a classy feeling.

Recapping a Flash episode is delightfully easy because the plots are always mind-bogglingly simple while at the same time remaining unbounded by the laws of narrative structure. In this episode, Flash decides he needs to defeat Ming by pretending to be "the one," the guy of prophesy who defeats Ming. So he goes to one of those skull-faced monks who do a lot of Burning Man-style chanting and they tell him that he has to fulfill the final piece of the prophesy and "warm the cold heart of a queen."

Then Flash is magically transported to Frigia, in a shiny silver suit. So he fights to free the queen from the ice, where she has been frozen in the lair of the ice worm by the evil usurper. He frees her, makes friends with another queen who happens to be roaming around in steampunk gear (the ass-grabber above), and then gets them both to pledge their armies to help him fight Ming.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, Dale comes out to her hot journalist girlfriend about having gone to Mongo. There is much agonizing and gazing soulfully at cameras and talking about aliens and danger. And Zarkov does a bunch of funny stuff, including talking to a scientist-hologram who is apparently trapped in evil scientist Rankol's "mind sucker" or "mind eater" or something. I think that may be the same device that makes me watch this show week after week.

Tonight, there's a new Kyle XY at 9 (instead of 8 as usual.) Kyle has girl trouble when Amanda comes home, plus (shockingly) Jessi XX is still being a big jerk. That's on ABC Family.

And there's a rerun of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles at 8 (not 9 as usual.) There's also the State of the Union address, which may have some elements of science fiction.

Tuesday at 8, there's a new Nova. (But your local PBS listings may vary.) It examines the secrets of the Parthenon in Greece, which probably won't include it having been built by aliens.

Wednesday at 9, there's an "enhanced" version of the Lost season three finale on ABC. From what I can gather, it's the same episode, only with text running along the bottom of the screen letting you know facts about the show. It may also help you spot clues you missed earlier.

Also, Moviemax is showing the awesome Slither, starring Nathan Fillion. And the History Channel has a rerun of UFO Files and a couple of MonsterQuest reruns.

Thursday is the return of Lost, and the answers to the questions left hanging at the end of season three... which will inevitably lead to more questions. It's a Chinese puzzle box thing. First, at 8 PM, there's a Lost clip show, basically recapping the first three seasons. Just in case there's someone out there who's never seen Lost but wants to try it — but only if he/she can be brought up to speed in an hour. And then the actual season premier is at 9. Here's what the official TV listing wants you to know about this episode: "The castaways await rescue by the people with whom they have made contact, but are troubled by Charlie's warning about them."

Meanwhile at 8, there's that new Smallville episode. Bizarro is still pretending to be Clark, but not everybody is fooled. And Grant reveals he's a clone of Julian.

Friday at 8, Flash Gordon has the first part of its two-part season finale, "Revolution part 1." There's a prophecy about a guy who can save Mongo. Could it be Flash? Or maybe it's actually Princess Aura, and the people who wrote down the prophecy were sexist tools. Ooh, and the Deviates are finally making their move. And maybe Flash finds his dad?

And then at 9, there's a new Stargate: Atlantis. Sheppard finds out his dad has died and goes back to Earth for the funeral. But there's Replicator trouble back on Earth.

Saturday at 9, there's a new Torchwood on BBC America. (Here's our recap.) Without giving away too much, it's a cleverly disguised metaphor for terrorism, which asks how far we're willing to go to get the truth out of a prisoner. It also asks the crucial question: Why doesn't anybody think Owen is sexy any more?

Sunday's a wasteland, except for a new Weaponology on the Military Channel at 10.

I have followed some of the commentary and it was a bit daunting at the beginning that there were some disappointed viewers out there. We went into that first episode's premiere with very high feelings for the show. We had really enjoyed the cuts and the dailies that were coming to the office, so we went into August with the feeling like, "This is great. We are on the coolest show. We're so happy to be here. It's gonna be so fun to watch this thing grow."

Then we got some pretty hard online reviews from people who were disappointed and we were like, "What happened there?" When I look back at it now with brilliant hindsight which is always 20/20, I can see that part of what happened was that there were stories that we knew were developing over time, therefore we could see the germs of them in those early episodes. People viewing couldn't see where it was going.

Gillian Horvath - Behind the Scenes on Flash Gordon [Pink Raygun.com]

Also included in this episode are: one scene where Zarkov pretends to get stoned; one scene where the "female scientist" working for Ming is hypnotized by toothpicks stuck in her forehead; one extremely "why am I here" looking Caribbean witch who tries to have an accent and pretends she's in Pirates of the Caribbean; and one scene where Dale cries and acts like a total pussy as usual.

Mostly the plot revolved around Aura's good-guy Deviate brother stealing Ming's stolen water, handing it out to the poor, and then getting blamed when the water (poisoned by Ming) starts killing people. So Flash has to rescue Good Deviate from some Bad Leatherboys who are mad about the water thing, and that's when Flash and Aura tangle with the tangle tree. Eventually the witch, who is apparently acquainted with the tangle tree, gives them the antidote to the poison water. The hypnotized Female Scientist goes on the radio and denounces Ming as the bad guy, he gets mad, then everything is back to normal. Tune in next week for more of Aura's fucking awesome outfits.

Monday night is, once again, a block of teenage almost-superheroes. At 8 PM on ABC Family, Kyle XY continues the "OMG my hawt female counterpart is outta control!" plot. Except now Jessi is going to Kyle's school and acting extra bratty. Before you know it, she'll be faking a broken neck to freak out the stuck-up head cheerleader or something. Here's the trailer:
Then at 9 PM, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is also about our male hero going to school with his weird female companion. The only difference is, our female Terminator isn't a crazy show-off like Jessi. Or maybe she kind of is, judging from the man-grabbing action in this trailer:
Also on Monday, at 10 PM, is Life After People on the History Channel. It's a porntacular look at how the world would get on without any of us pesky humans cluttering it up. Pretty well, by all accounts.

Tuesday at 9, there's the final episode of time-travel cop show Life On Mars on BBC America. Gene rushes to catch a notorious cop killer. Meanwhile, Morgan promises to Sam that after just "one more job" he can go home to 2006. It's the heart-stopping climax where we find out what's really been happening all this time.

Wednesday night... umm... League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is showing on FX. CMTV has Little Beauties, a child beauty pageant that really ought to be science fictional but isn't. Besides that... I dunno. get out of the house. Go bowling. Does your town still have a bowling alley? They're dying out, you know.

Thursday, the final two episodes of Chuck completed before the strike are airing. But not back-to-back. NBC couldn't possibly be that