Shazam! (1974)
With one word, Billy Batson becomes the World's Mightiest Mortal... but that's about the most believable thing in this series, which creepily featured the underage Billy traveling around the country in an RV accompanied by his "mentor" and occasionally talking to the gods who gave him his powers, who all happened to be badly-animated cartoons. Add in Billy or Captain Marvel helpfully telling you the moral of the episode at the end each week, and you've got a recipe for a dull show enlivened only by the size of Billy's hair.

Electra-Woman and Dyna-Girl (1976)
I'm not really sure this one needs any explanation as to why it's on the list, once you've watched the video.

The Amazing Spider-Man (1977)
In which television revealed the truth about Marvel's favorite superhero: He looked kind of ridiculous. This short-lived series also missed the point of the comic book altogether by not using any of the character's famous supervillains, instead giving him ninjas and terrorists to fight. What was the point of that?

Legends Of The Superheroes (1978)
No expense was spared on bringing DC's biggest name superheroes to the small screen in this live action version of Super Friends - well, unless you count the money that would've been spent on a good script. Again, proving that bad writing and poor special effects can overcome even the best intentions, this two-part series (The second episode of which was a celebrity roast of the heroes led by Ed McMahon. No, really) also featured a villain more diabolical than Lex Luthor: A laugh track.

Those Terrible Captain America TV Movies (1979)
We can just imagine the pitch meeting for these two TV movies: "So, we have the rights to Captain America - You know, the guy who embodies the American Dream and fought in World War II against Hitler? I've got a great take on him: We turn him into Evel Kinivel. And let's get rid of that mask, too. Make it into a motorcycle helmet - That's much more hep." It could've been worse, we guess... We're just not sure how.

The Incredible Hulk Returns (1988)
The original Hulk series was, if you ask us, one of the few superhero shows that worked - and that's because they didn't really treat it as a superhero show at all. When they revived the series a decade later and started pairing him with guest stars from the Marvel Universe, though...? Not a good idea:

(The Daredevil appearance in the next special, Trial of The Incredible Hulk, may be even worse; especially because they seem to have gotten the character mixed up with a generic ninja who happened to be blind.)

Superboy (1988)
An attempt to spin the Superman movies into a weekly format, the Superboy series had sincerity going for it - Sincerity and the seeming inability to not try and drastically rework the series between seasons every year (Including recasting the lead role after the original Superboy asked for a raise around the same time as getting arrested for drunk driving), leading to a schizophrenic, uneven show let down by shoddy special effects.

The Flash (1990)
The Flash comic book may be populated with colorful villains, but the television show didn't have the same luck (Mark Hamill's Trickster, in the clip below, aside), presumably for budgetary reasons. Add in a leading man as stiff as his ridiculously over-sculpted costume, and it's no surprise that this show only lasted one season.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (1993)
Secret identities, colorful outfits, super powers, fighting crime... These guys count as superheroes, right? Maybe it's our age, maybe our dedication to things like plot, dialogue and nuance, or perhaps it's just our aversion to cheap monsters in anything that doesn't actually involve Godzilla, but the long-running (and multiple-show-spanning: It's on its fifteenth different title right now) series always seemed... well, almost unwatchably bad to us.

Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1993)
It's a judgment call as to whether this show really deserves to be here. On the one hand, the Moonlighting-esque relationship between its leads was cute, and John Shea's Lex Luthor was a lot of fun... But on the other, it was a show that struggled to come up with good ideas each week and often failed, leading to an episode where Clark married a clone of Lois, who needed to eat frogs in order to survive. Or something. And what was with essentially writing Lex out after one season, anyway?

Generation X (1996)
A pilot adapting Marvel's X-Men spin-off, Generation X made it to air but never to full-series, meaning that the world was spared the low-budget high-concept struggle of teens having to live with their mutant abilities in a world that hated and feared them... because they couldn't act.

Justice League of America (1997)
Possibly the ultimate proof that TV and superheroes don't mix, this is another unsuccessful pilot that aired nonetheless, and features bad writing, bad acting, bad special effects, and some of the most literal - and most embarrassing - superhero costumes ever seen on screen. It's like a landmark of fail.

Mutant X (2001)
Marvel's short-lived television series about mutants that isn't related to the X-Men at all oh no please don't sue us Fox (They did, nonetheless) tried to swerve away from comparisons to the publisher's successful mutant franchise by underplaying everything to the point of boredom. Even Generation X would've been better than this.

Birds of Prey (2002)
It had so much potential - Batman and Catwoman's daughter teaming up with the former Batgirl to fight crime? Hello, high concept - but the execution let it down badly with shoddy writing, lack of direction and the mistaken idea that camp was better than character development. When something makes Smallville look subtle and nuanced, you know you're in trouble.

The Ones That Didn't Suck
Batman (1966)
Almost everything about it is wrong - The cheap jokes! The ill-fitting costumes! Replacing Julie Newmar with Eartha Kitt! - but it all works nonetheless; Batman's 1960s incarnation may not be the best translation from page to screen, but as a weird totem of the era, it remains a classic.

Wonder Woman (1975)
We love Wonder Woman as a character, and this show may be a lot to do with that. While the comic version was having identity issues at the time this series was being made, the TV show took her back to her heyday, added the "let me twirl into my costume" and fittingly made Lynda Carter the star she should've been all along.

The Incredible Hulk (1978)
As we said above, the Hulk show worked despite its title character - Riffing on The Fugitive with an occasional need for a giant silent strongman, the show offered a completely different take on the character from the comics, and one that was arguably better.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1996)
When it comes to television series about people with magical powers, we don't think we're alone in thinking that Joss Whedon did everything right. Mixing just the right amounts of humor and tragedy into the supernatural and superpowered stories, Buffy is everything that superhero shows like Smallville and Heroes should be trying to emulate... if only they could drag themselves away from the superficial special effects and overcooked dialogue.

The Obvious Exceptions
Anything animated
Yes, all of the above shows were live-action, and yes, we know that superhero cartoons have a long and proud history on television as well; we're partial to some Justice League Unlimited, especially if Darkseid is the bad guy. But as much as adding animated series in here may have ruined the grade curve, let's not forget things like this:

or this:

I think you know what I'm saying.

X-23
In what still counts as one of the most "WTF" moments of Marvel's history, Wolverine's teenage female clone was introduced to comic audiences as a prostitute servicing those with particularly masochistic tendencies. Just think about that for a second. Luckily, saner heads prevailed, and pretty soon Laura Kinney (AKA X-23) left behind that world to become one of the X-Men, and currently appears in the regular X-Force series as a troubled goth kid, which befits her status as a faulty clone created by scientists trying to duplicate Wolverine but without that pesky conscience.

Daken/Dark Wolverine
Much more straight-forwardly, Daken (AKA Dark Wolverine, although he doesn't actually call himself that, thankfully) is Wolverine's son. Much less straight-forwardly, he was stolen from his dead mother's womb, had his existence kept secret from his father for years and grew into the kind of man who'll kill for fun and probably listen to My Chemical Romance while cutting himself with his claws and feeling like the world doesn't love him. Call it Marvel's underhanded way of demonstrating its support for traditional family values. He's currently pretending to be his father as part of Norman Osborn's "Dark Avengers" team of n'er-do-wells, alongside Venom and other villainous types.

Kitty Pryde
Many comic fans' first crush, Pryde was the spunky girl geek with superpowers that brought about one of the stranger running themes of Wolverine's career - his surrogate fatherhood. Acting against type, the grim loner Wolverine took the young Pryde under his wing when she first joined the X-Men, leading to comedic adventures and misunderstandings and only a few creepy scenes when you stopped to wonder why Wolverine wanted to hang out with a teenage girl. Thanks to Joss Whedon, Kitty's currently flying inside a giant bullet in space.

Amiko Kobayashi
Surrogate daughter #2, Amiko was adopted by Wolverine after her mother died during a battle between the X-Men and a giant dragon. He passed her to various, more responsible, caretakers during the years, but has always remained in danger from Wolverine's enemies. Luckily, as incredible coincidence or lazy plotting would have it, she turned out to be descended from ancient Japanese warriors and is now studying with them to become an unstoppable fighting machine.

Jubilee
Surrogate daughter #3, and a reliable indicator of your age. Simply put, if you find Jubilation Lee (Yes, that's her real name) anything other than an irritating failed attempt to recreate the original relationship between Kitty Pryde and Wolverine but with a rip-off of Frank Miller's Carrie Kelly from The Dark Knight Returns, then you were either a teenager in the 1990s or her creator Chris Claremont. One of the first signs that Claremont was beginning to lose touch with his audience, Jubilee nonetheless was successful enough to make it into the 1990s X-Men cartoon, as well as numerous comic spin-offs from X-Men, including Generation X and the ongoing Wolverine series. These days, she's in limbo following the cancellation of her last series, New Warriors.

Scotty and Jade
In the alternate future "Old Man Logan" storyline, Wolverine has two kids, both of whom are rarely seen, but appear to be non-superpowered and relatively normal. Scotty is clearly named for Scott Summers, AKA Cyclops from the X-Men, but I admit that Jade is a bit more obscure. If any of you have any suggestions, don't be shy.

Banner Jr.
Again from an alternate future, but Fantastic Force's Hooded Man - a future Wolverine who's traveled back to our present - is the stepfather of Banner Jr., an intelligent descendant of the Hulk. Almost everything else about the relatively new characters is unknown.

As a card-carrying member* of Generation X, I am sick of Gen-X pandering from the entertainment industry. I lived through the 1980s, and they licked the first time.They were a vapid time: full of neon, preppies, pastels, bad hair, callow materialism and Debbie Gibson. (Actually, I kind of liked Debbie Gibson. But don't tell anybody.)

Signs of the apocalypse include a He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe movie — why, Vishnu, why? — and a new 90210 sequel series, featuring some of the original actors. (Okay, so 90210 isn't science fiction, except that Shannon Doherty is some sort of mutant.) Not to mention a G.I. Joe movie, a Transformers sequel, a Knight Rider TV show, an Escape From New York remake, a Robotech movie, a Bill And Ted remake, another new Terminator movie and TV show, an A-Team movie, a Greatest American Hero movie, a War Games sequel and a Wolverine movie — even though Wolverine first hit in the 1970s, he didn't really hit until the 1980s. Plus, the Brits are bringing me a new Blake's 7 show!

Not to mention, the comics industry is obsessed with the comics that were coming out during the exact month I realized you're not supposed to act impressed by your first real kiss. Marvel is putting out a series that's actually called 1985, and the whole point is: it takes place in 1985. Plus the big money shot in Secret Invasion #1 is all the Marvel superheroes, looking like their 1980s counterparts, stepping off a spaceship as if they've been away for 20 years. And every DC comic for the past three years has been a rehash of Crisis On Infinite Earths. And did DC really publish a new Outsiders comic, or did I just hallucinate it?

Not to mention that they're using the magic of modern technology to put out a new Mega Man game that looks totally retro (i.e., crappy) and 8-bit. And you can actually buy an Atari 2600 controller with games that look just as crufty as they did when I drank 10 liters of coke and conquered Adventure.

As Doris Lessing says in her science fictional Canopus In Argos series, nostaglia means "longing for what has never been." Much of Lessing's work is about the use of nostalgia to poison people, drawing people into supporting bad wars and worse policies and regressing everyone into pliant babies. Speaking of which, they're totally redoing the Canopus series except this time there'll be a talking tea-kettle named Naughty.

The other morning when I woke up, Kevin Feige, Brad Grey and Jeff Zucker were gathered around my bed, holding little mugs of hot chocolate with marshmallows and replicas of the Wonder Woman pajamas I used to wear. "We're bringing it all back!" Kevin Feige said. "It's 1986 all over again!" Jeff Zucker said. "That day you ate ten boxes of nachos and swigged half a bottle of Malibu until you passed out marinating in your own stomach acid and pancreas squeezings? It'll be just like that!" I tried to explain that I didn't really want to relive those years, and the greatest antidote to lingering nostalgia is to see all of the plastic castles of youth rebuilt anew.

"But it'll all be a hundred times better this time, thanks to CG!" Paramount's Brad Grey jumped up and down. "Just look at this new Airwolf pilot, where the super-helicopter is also an ipod, and it's got the brain of a self-help guru inside it, and it'll travel back in time and make your junior prom not suck. And it's in love with Tina Majorino from Veronica Mars! Also, the CG can make it so the people who only pretended to like you in high school really did like you!" I had to dive out the window before they could show me the pilot for a new series that mashed up Manimal and Perfect Strangers, where a guy's cousin turns out to have a funny accent and animal powers.

I had to duck out the window, still wearing my non-footie pajamas, to escape from the bombardment with pop detritus my mom threw out when I was a teenager. They chased me down Haight St., waving posters for their new reality TV series that blends The Big Chill with Cherry 2000: The Big Cherry Chill, where old friends gather, with their malfunctioning sexbots in tow, and listen to the music of their youth: Depeche Mode. I dove into a bong store to seek refuge (Haight St. is pretty much all bong stores — I blame nostalgia) but the guy in the store was one of those new cyber-preppies, obsessively checking his friends network on the new Preppie Handbook-themed version of Facebook. It was actually worse than being pandered to by Jeff Zucker.

In the end, I had to surrender. They tucked me in, fluffed my pillows, put me in the Wonder Woman PJs, and snuck me some weed. It was just like when I faked sick at age 15. Then they put the portable TV at the foot of my bed and showed me the director's cut of Speed Racer, which is ten hours long and turns pornographic right before Christina Ricci's skin falls off and the Mach-6 starts only going backwards. And hey. As I drifted into a warm place, feeling as though I could just wet myself right here in the bed and Brad Grey would clean it up for me, I had a stab of memory: being annoyed, in the late 80s, whenever the fuck the 20th anniversary of the Summer Of Love was (1986? 1989? No clue) and being annoyed by all the crappy 1960s nostalgia, Star Trek was back and everything 1960s was back... and thinking: One day it'll be our turn. So hey, now it is. I might as well enjoy it. Right?

* Actually I lost my card. I'm a slacker, what do you want? If you actually still have your Gen-X card, you're not really Gen-X. If you've got your Gen-X card and you laminated it or covered it with mylar of some sort, you're probably actually part of the Net or Millennial generations. (Actually, according to this incredibly confusing and enlightening chart by Josh Glenn, I'm really part of the Generation That Ate Its Own Entrails, or GAIE for short.)