Simone spoke during today's DC panel here at San Diego Comic-Con about where she's planning to take Diana following the conclusion of the controversial Rise Of The Olympian storyline: She's teaming up with former Bird Of Prey Black Canary to go undercover as cagefighters for two issues, starting with this Wednesday's Wonder Woman #34. Following that, there'll be an even more extreme change in the new storyline Warkiller:

Wonder Woman is going to renounce the gods and declare that she is no longer an Amazon. We're going to see her as more of a superhero than she's been in quite some time.

Don't think this means that the series will lose its Amazonian edge with this change, however; Simone also teased that Themyscira, the home island of the Amazons, is about to find itself with a new ruler: Ares, the god of war. Not that everything will go to plan:

They're not too happy about that. They're not going to make everything easy for him.

Cagefights, out and proud superheroics and warrior women making gods' lives misery - How can you resist? Warkiller begins in September's #36.

Oh, and there are spoilers in this post, but only fairly old ones. Like, who's in the coffin. And who's the final Cylon.

There are many reasons to love spoilers, all of them totally valid, in my book. (Inflicting spoilers on people who don't want to be spoiled? That's a different matter, and it's something we agonize over a lot at io9. We do inadvertently put spoilers where spoilerphobes can see them, on occasion, but it's always by accident or misjudgment, and we agonize over it a lot more than you might think. Generally, though, we try to include spoiler warnings before going over to the spoiler side.)

But at the same time, there's a pervasive misconception about spoiler-lovers floating around out there that I'd like to clear up: that we're power mad. That the only pleasure in reading spoilers, or sharing spoilers, is to feel powerful. To know something that other people don't know. The spoiler-phile, in the view of some media people, feels powerful because she or he is robbing stories of their power: the power of suspense, their ability to surprise.

J.J. Abrams writes in a recent issue of Wired Magazine:

It's telling that the very term itself-spoiler-has become synonymous with "cool info you can get before the other guy." What no one remembers is that it literally means "to damage irreparably; to ruin." Spoilers make no bones about destroying the intended experience-and somehow that has become, for many, the preferred choice.

But to be honest, knowing spoilers doesn't make me feel powerful or one-up on any one else. And i don't feel like they ruin the experience of consuming stories afterwards. It just makes me more excited about the narratives I already love. And, often, more curious about the narratives I don't know anything about — or have already lost interest in. The more I know, the more fascinated I become. Because I'm a geek, duh.

So here are some reasons why we love spoilers.

The lure of the forbidden:

Okay, sure. We just got done saying that we don't love spoilers because of some crazy power trip. But at the same time, the fact that spoilers are regarded as "naughty" or even sleazy certainly has its appeal. It would be hypocritical to pretend otherwise. Here at io9, we don't publish gossip: Edward James Olmos could do nude gymnastics in public every single day, and we'd never mention it on our blog. But we decided early on that spoilers are to us what gossip is to Perez Hilton. It's our naughty indulgence, and the stigma attached to it only makes it more exciting.

The more you tell us it's wrong, and we'll go to Hell or grow hair in places our Brazilian waxer won't go near, the more we crave it. It's just human nature.

The grand conversation:

Paradoxically, the Internet has fueled my love of old media. I would have given up reading comic books years ago, if it weren't for the fact that writers like Gail Simone and Kurt Busiek are so accessible online. Commenting on their work, answering fans' questions, responding to your harshest criticisms. I'm much more excited to pick up issue #5001 of Super-Blasting Mega-Dorks when I know that my $2.99 is, in part, buying me a chance to participate in a huge ongoing conversation online.

And it's not just creator participation — it's reviews, previews, and yes... spoilers. Part of the thrill of taking part in fan communities is piecing together the clues about what's coming next. Movie studios, TV companies and comics companies know this, and they try to use it to their advantage, with viral marketing, clever hints and promos that tease you with upcoming plots. When fans get together and geek out about upcoming TV shows and movies, a big part of that is always going to be speculating/guessing/clue-hunting about what the next thing is.

Like I said, the big media companies know that this is going on, and they would like to control it. In fact, they know that eventually, this conversation will become the entertainment you consume. Television will be moving online slowly but surely, and "webisodes," awful as they usually are, are just the thin end of that wedge. Entertainment is going to become more and more interactive, and harder and harder for big media to control.

But that's a meta-topic for another day. Suffice to say, for now, that obsessing over spoilers, rumors, leaks and sometimes outright lies is a huge part of the way we're all building community around the shows and movies we love. Just like fanfic, it's not authorized, or under the big conglomerates' control, but it fuels our shared love. And often the speculation about what's coming is more entertaining than the reality turns out to be. (See: Almost every movie this summer.)

The unconventional seduction:

I gave up on Star Trek after Deep Space Nine went away. I tried to watch Voyager, but it made me feel like my brain was being squished into a jello mold very, very slowly. And Enterprise just left me totally apathetic.

But then a funny thing happened: long after I stopped watching Trek, I kept reading spoilers for it. I also read reviews of episodes I'd missed, on Cynic's Corner or Jammer's Reviews or Television Without Pity. But reading spoilers for upcoming Trek episodes was more fun, partly because they sounded more crazy and over-the-top when you heard about them in advance. ("Kes gets a barbarian warrior's personality stuck in her brain? Tucker gets pregnant?")

The weird thing is, reading spoilers for Trek — and for other shows I barely watched, like Smallville — made me feel like I was still following them, to some extent. And the spoilers and rumors actually helped recharge my interest in those shows. I actually came back to Voyager in its last season, and also started watching Enterprise again after a couple years away, because I was reading spoilers and they seemed excitingly weird and/or potentially awesome.

Ditto for several comic books, and more than a few movies. Hollywood's official marketing machine gives away plenty of details about the storylines of upcoming stuff, but at the same time, the blandness of a lot of trailers and blurbs tends to turn me off. But sometimes, coming across a really outrageous set photo or gonzo rumor can spark my curiosity in the way a hundred peanut-butter-smooth promos never can.

The dreadful admonition:

And then there's the other side of it: Sometimes we need to be warned. "Trip gets pregnant" actually isn't necessarily a good thing. Neither is "Satan annuls Spider-Man's marriage." Or "we'll be meeting Hiro Nakamura as a young boy." There's almost no way "Kid Hiro" could have turned out to be a good thing.

Sometimes, a television show or movie or comic has so much pain in store for us, we need a giant warning buoy flashing crazily and sounding a banshee siren, letting us know in advance. Of course, you can't really judge a piece of media based on advance plot info — especially stuff you read on the Internet. But at the same time, when a particular franchise has an established track record, you have to be vigiilant for the warning signs. Suppose Voyager was still on the air, and you started seeing reports that an upcoming episode would feature Janeway and Michelangelo going white-water rafting on the Holodeck. You would panic! And you'd be right to do so.

And then there's the case of Terminator Salvation, which originally ended with John Connor's face being transplanted onto Marcus Wright's cyborg body — after which a red-eyed Wright killed Kate Connor, Kyle Reese, and the rest of the supporting cast. The filmmakers were serious enough about this ending that they apparently filmed it. But after Ain't It Cool News leaked the ending, McG and company scrambled to replace it with the slightly-less-ridiculous heart transplant thing. So there's a case where spoilers not only warned us of a horrendous storyline, but actually averted it.

Getting back to what Abrams wrote in Wired, I don't actually think knowing who's in the coffin on Lost actually ruins your enjoyment of the storyline. The fun of a show like Lost, for most viewers, is seeing the characters grow and their relationships shifting. And finding out how Locke got into that coffin. (Which, for me at least, was a bit of a let-down.) A good plot twist is one that, even if you know it's coming, you still enjoy the ride getting there.

As I said before, I think entertainment is going to become much more interactive and much more audience-driven in the next decade or two, and the battle over spoilers is just one small piece of that. Traditionally, being a storyteller has meant having control over the narrative and deciding what the audience gets to know, and when. Maybe eventually, we'll have a new balance of power, one in which there's more of a give and take. We don't yet know what this'll look like, but here's hoping it leads to richer stories, in which strong characters — not closely guarded plot twists — are the real source of creators' power.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rucka has been less optimistic at times:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The official solicitation for this week's issue reads:

This is the big one! After Junior's horrifying unmasking last issue, the bruised and battered remnants of the Secret Six try to deliver their package to their mysterious benefactor in Gotham City, a city made even more dangerous by the notable absence of Batman. The only problem is a crowd of villains and heroes determined to block them every step of the way!

What those of you unfamiliar with the series need to know is very simple, though; the Secret Six are a group of former supervillain mercenaries who are all relatively messed up, and led by Catman. Who is awesome. Yes, he's called Catman. Get over it.

Secret Six #6 hits stores on Wednesday.

Secret Six #6 [DC Comics]

Simone, who's been writing the character since last November (and is only the third woman ever to write the character, and the first to handle her longterm), gave us her thoughts about where any potential WW movie could go wrong - and what they could do to make things right:

In general, I'm very skeptical of any fake irony when dealing with Wonder Woman. If we're getting some kind of post-modern satire of the Lynda Carter series, I'd rather they just pass on the whole idea entirely. Christopher Reeve showed that the noble characters work best when played nobly. Winking at the audience insults everyone involved.

So I guess I'd just hope for the best no matter who was chosen. It would be my fervent hope that they'd look at some of the better WW stories of the last couple decades before making the film... that could only be a positive gesture.

We've already suggested that whoever ends up making the movie could learn a thing or two from Simone's run on the book so far, but agree with that last point; there're a lot of material there for movie makers looking to avoid a camp, retro version of the character.

Of course, if they really wanted to make the right move, they could just ask Simone to write the movie (and if they do, I'd like 10% of your fee, Gail).

Gail Simone opened up to the audience — and her fellow panelists, the podcasters behind Raging Bullets — to applaud the support for Wonder Woman, and discuss that and other projects. We've included some of the best questions and answers below:

Why are you so awesome?
It's the red hair, you know. It affects everything.

Any chance you'll be writing for the new Deadpool comic?
Not super-soon, since I'm doing Wonder Woman, and we're launching the new monthly Secret Six comic. I'm working with the mighty, mighty, mighty Nicola Scott — it's very delicious. We're devising many ways to get Catman topless. Also, Welcome to Tranquility is going to continue on in six-issue increments, and will be bringing back a dead character ....

Any clues?
Dead. [laughs] I've also got this picture to show you: yes, a certain Dark Knight and a certain savage Catman will be bumping heads. It's going to be very cool and very sexy and very wrong.

What is your favorite character that you've written and why?
That is such a hard question to answer just because the way I am and the way I write, I can't really write a character unless I try to get into their heads. So I have to find something about them that is my favorite in order to do it. I really loved the journey — as they put it — of Black Canary in Birds of Prey. I always loved her character. I didn't love her being the wet blanket to Green Arrow and how she always had to go, "ohhh, Green Arrow, don't!" I know people were going "oh my God" in the beginning that I had her bound and everything, but the goal was to tear her down and then build her up again. She was the heart of that book for me — she wore her heart on her sleeve, and was witty and sarcastic and loyal and all of the things that I love.

I love Wonder Woman and the Amazons — do you have any set Amazon Code out there that you're going with?
First of all, I love the Amazons, I think it's a really important piece of DC history and DC comic-dom, but I don't like to only see them in togas reading poetry and stuff. If you really think about it, you have an island that's basically been sequestered from the rest of the world, and it's all women and a warrior tribe. They would have their own rituals and cultures that they would have developed in and of themselves. We've been reading along and doing new things, going into stuff that maybe has been touched upon and maybe haven't. I don't think that an entire island of humans, let alone women, would entirely be of the same mind all the time — I want to make it a little more primal.

Can you please convince DC to add another WW title?
I do think DC is definitely looking at that. They do see that that is an important part of the whole DC Universe and I wouldn't be surprised at all if you guys see that. There's some new stuff coming out of the upcoming storyline I'm doing for Wonder Woman that will create a LOT of new characters in the DC Universe that will be very interesting and different from what you've seen before. It'll open up a whole new world. I'm very excited about it.

Any hints about the upcoming Rogues appearances?
I don't want to give too much, because I really am into people discovering the story themselves and bringing into it what they want. Basically, there's going to be a group of worldwide scientists who believe they've found the mathematical equation to bring down Wonder Woman. In that is going to come something as evil and bad and horrible as a dark side for Wonder Woman. They're going to get soil from genocides around the world and create this horrible thing.

How do you get to know a character?
In my years before I went to hairdressing school, I did a lot of theater and wrote little mini-screenplays, starting as young as sixth grade. I learned how to build a character from theater. When you're playing a character on stage, you really need to build them up from the ground and learn where they were born, what their family is like — even if you're only onstage for 5 minutes. When I'm building a character I really like to go back to ground one. That comes back to choreographing fight scenes and stuff — how would somebody like Wonder Woman fight compared to someone like Doctor Psycho? They have completely different worldviews and completely different upbringing. One has some handicaps and disabilities, the other one has what we perceive as all the gifts she could possibly have ... That's how you to do a character that's more three-dimensional. A character would talk in these speech patterns depending on if they came from the Deep South, or the North, or England, or outer space, or whatever. If you're going to write a good character, you have to think about these things, and that's where most of my time writing is still spent.

You've been quoted as saying that you've contacted some of the past Wonder Woman creators when you had certain questions. What's the balancing act like of trying to be a steward and also putting your stamp on the character?
I think approaching a character like Wonder Woman — as opposed to a character that I've created, like Black Alice — is different because she does have a 60+ year history. I do not want to undo any of that. I do have storylines that were my favorites and also treatments I didn't like as much, but that is her history, and I am not a big fan of coming in and wiping out everything. I spent probably a good seven months thinking about Wonder Woman before I ever really wrote much. Once we got to that first issue, I had a very clear vision of where I thought her character should go and what we needed to do for today and honor the past at the same time. I'm not undoing any of her creation, but I'm just adding to the lore of it.

Now that all the gods are freed, how long will it be before we see Athena again in Wonder Woman?
I don't know. You're going to have to keep reading to find that out. Sorry! We do have a lot of stuff with the gods coming out — it's going to be handled a bit differently than in the past, and it's not going to be bogged down with mythology and stuff like that. Athena does not really have a favorable reaction to the fact that Diana pledged herself to another god, the Polynesian god. So we're going to be hearing about that.

Is the Polynesian god expecting something?
Definitely.

I love your characterization of the Mad Hatter in Secret Six.
Oh, you dirty, dirty boy!
Will we see him again?
Not immediately. We're busy with a lot of other characters: Catman, Ragdoll, Scandal, Savage, Batman, a character I created that Nicola designed — they're all there.

Working as a woman in what is predominantly a male area, do you find it hard to balance trying to fit in to this world? And do you think that fans hold you to a stricter guideline on your own treatment of what being a woman is like?
I don't know if the fans do or not — I can't write with these kinds of things in my mind, I have to just do what makes the best story and what makes the most sense. As far as being a woman in what we're considering a predominantly male occupation ... First of all, it's changing a lot right now — there are a lot of women working in the industry right now. I only think about it when people bring it up; that's the truth. I was so preoccupied worrying about other things, like "am I good enough writer? will people like it?" I encourage anyone going into a creative career — don't let whatever you are enter into it in a bad way.

Are we going to see more of the little quirks like the dating ritual and Diana, the secret identity behind Wonder Woman?
I think at first I wrestled with the fact of whether or not I felt comfortable with her having a secret identity, because she's all about truth and honesty and everything. But if you were her and you were this gorgeous Amazonian princess, and you were walking down the street and everyone knew you were Wonder Woman and knew everything about you — that would be exhausting. For one thing, having a secret identity is a different kind of warfare, in her mind. And it's a chance for her to not be in the spotlight and gives her a chance to explore humanity. She was raised on an island of women, and now she's out in the world and exposed to lots of things. This is a chance for her to explore that without being Wonder Woman.

Will we see more talking apes?
You guys are going to see so much crazy stuff, you're not going to know what to do with it.

One of the great things about you is so accessible — you do blogs, you do podcasts. How important do you think that is to get new readers, and do you think the industry is doing enough of that?
What I think is so great about now, and I think you guys can all see — is that this industry is growing. Everyone was really worried about whether manga would overtake comics, but the internet has really leveled the playing field — that's why we're getting more diversity in comics, creators. There are more ways to break into the format, and more ways to see comics than there ever have been. There are so many people doing blogs and commentary and reviews, and it's all helping. A lot of people complain about it too — there's lots of negativity — but I don't look at it that way. There's a lot more good than negative. I started out on the internet, and I think there's a lot of bonus in freedom of speech and communication, and it's enhanced the medium.

Tell us about your forum community.
We all do a messageboard at Comicbookresources.com. We talk about comics and joke around and do lots of things. I'm from a small town, I didn't know that many people who read comics — and that's how I talked to people about comics. I did that a long time before I ever started doing parody columns and stuff. It brings us as a comics community closer together as well, like if you're not close to a comics store or anything.

How would you feel if DC and/or Warner Bros. came to you and asked you for a script for Wonder Woman? It's way past time. And we don't have any female superhero movies out there.
Without Wonder Woman, I don't think there would be Xena. I don't think there would be Buffy or Alias. This is the difference between my generation and my son's generation — he doesn't even think about it, he just thinks it's normal that we have these strong women in television and film and books and everything. And if they asked me for a script, well, I would be completely honored and scared at the same time if that happened.

It seems like the rest of DC isn't quite catching up to what you're doing. There are so many projects going on in the DC Universe, and it seems like Wonder Woman gets left behind a lot.
We're talking about that a lot, but other writers are working on projects that have Wonder Woman, they've been coming up to me and saying that they really like the take on her, and they want to use that take. I think we're going to see the changes happening over time and that there's going to be more Wonder Woman product out there.

You've worked with amazing artists with a lot of variety. I hear Aaron Lopresti is coming on board now ....
Aaron Lopresti is the new penciller for Wonder Woman, and it's absolutely stunning. The first arc that he's drawing is a very kind of Beowulf-y one — it is very gorgeous and very detailed, and every time I see a page in I'm so excited. I can't wait for you guys to see it. I'm very excited. I couldn't be happier!

Is Huntress really going to teach Catman how to waltz again?
Catman needs so much help.

Since Secret Six is going to be ongoing, are the characters going to be rotating?
I don't know. I mean, I know, but I don't want you guys to know — I don't want you guys to always think there's only going to be one character that bites the dust, because there might be three or four at some point. This is a team that gets involved in some very shady dealings, and have a little bit of moral problems. The very first story that we're doing, the Secret Six is hired to transport a major villain from San Francisco to Metropolis, so the entire DC Universe wants to stop them. Who knows who's going to make it out of that and who isn't?

So they're not gonna turn good on us?
You love to hate 'em, don't you? Or you hate to love 'em, or something like that. No, they aren't gonna turn good, trust me. This is going to be the ballsiest DC book ever, and the greatest thing about it is that it's going to be written by me.

This is the MechaTabZilla, as the Huntress nicknames it during the battle over Metropolis. Tabitha wants to take over her father's crime empire now that she's killed him, but his old colleagues won't take her seriously. So she nabs this truck, which the Birds of Prey think is loaded with weapons. Instead, the truck turns out to be a robot in disguise.

I love that the truck's cab is the robot's pelvis. And McKeever gets in a nice riff on the book's usual girl-power theme. The gangsters are trying to decide whether they should smack Tabitha down "with the backhand or the forehand." And then Tabitha's giant robot fist crashes through the wall of their little gang sanctum.

After disappointing runs on Countdown and Teen Titans, this is the closest McKeever has come to Mary Jane-y goodness in a while. The giant robo-teen feels just out-of-left enough that it could have come from Gail Simone, the longtime Birds writer who left a few months ago.

Get your space opera thrills with Nova Vol. 1: Annihilation Conquest. Nova, the Marvel Universe's answer to Green Lantern, came back from total obscurity during 2006's Annihilation mega-crossover. This trade collects the first seven issues of the Nova series that came after Annihilation ended. It crosses over with some other storylines, including Civil War, but manages to remain amazingly readable on its own.

Also from Marvel: The Ultimates Vol. 2 gets collected in a $35 hardcover.

If you're looking for something less superhero-y, Astronaut Dad Vol. 1 looks pretty great. It's a coming-of-age tale in the 1960s, about two kids who discover their dads aren't just astronauts in training — they're working on an orbital spy program. It's the first of two volumes, and it's only $5.95. And from IDW, there's the Transformers Megatron Origin TP, which reveals at last how the Megatron became the baddest bot and gathered his own Manson Family in the form of the Decepticons.

Meanwhile, in the floppies, Fantastic Four #552 starts to reveal what Reed Richards was really up to during Civil War. Many fans had a lot of complaints about Richards' apparently out-of-behavior psycho behavior during that series, and writer Dwayne McDuffie has been slowly rebuilding Richards into a believable character again. So this could be an interesting character-saving patch, or a pointless detour.

Also, Battlestar Galactica: Origins #1 shows how Gaius Baltar became the puppy-eyed, weepy, threesome-having politician/religious figure he is today. Nexus: The Origin reprints an award-winning one-shot from 1991 that gets you up to speed on Horatio Hellpop and his tortured world. And Booster Gold #5 dares to tamper with one of comics' most iconic — and controversial — stories, as Booster travels back to stop the Joker from shooting Batgirl in the spine.

What exactly is the Circle, and what deadly secret do they hold about Diana's birth? What familiar face from Wonder Woman's past returns with a mission to spy on Special Agent Diana Prince? Why is the Department of Metahuman Affairs on a collision course with the wounded remnants of the Society of Super-Villains? All this plus monkey assassins in a story that spans the globe and shakes Diana to her core!

For the record, those clues were: "Society of Super-Villains," and "monkey assassins." Maybe we'll finally see the twisted "Villains United" Simone united with the pulpy "All-New Atom" Simone. We can only hope!