Thor

Stan Lee has been tweeting about his cameo:

Due to Thor, I must start rehearsing my thee's and thou's. So, if thou objecteth not, I wish thee well! 'Nuff saideth.

He could be yanking our chains, but perhaps Lee won't be walking amongst the modern mortals. [Twitter]

John Carter of Mars

We get a casting call for several human characters and one Martian:

Synopsis: A damaged civil war veteran finds himself mysteriously transported to Mars where his involvements with warring races of the dying planet force him to rediscover his humanity.

[STABLE BOY] 9 yrs old, Mestizo – a mixture of European and Native American or Mexican decent, no lines, 1 scene

[DIX] The storekeeper, 40's – 50's, built like a lumberjack/longshoreman, strong & husky, 5 lines, 1 scene

[1ST ROWDY] Late 20's – early 30's, rough and dirty, worn looking, 1 line, 1 scene

[2ND ROWDY] Late 20's – early 30's, rough and dirty, worn looking, 1 line, 1 scene

[CAVALRYMAN/SERGEANT] Early 30's, clean cut, 2 lines, 1 scene

[US STOCKADE PRISON GUARD] Mid 20's – early 30's, clean cut, 4 lines, 2 scenes

[APACHE LEADER] 40's - 60s, Native American, must speak Apache, wise and experienced with a weathered face. Multiple lines, 1 scene

[TWITCHY CORPORAL] 20's - 30s, a shifty bad guy, not to be trusted. 1 line, 1 scene.

[YOUNG THARK WARRIOR] 20'S, tall (6' PLUS), athletic, experience working on stilts, MOTION PICTURE CAPTURE ROLE

[SpoilerTV-Movies]

Deadpool

Rumor has it that Zombieland writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick will pen the Deadpool script. [Cinematical]

Green Lantern

Ryan Reynolds wants to quell fears that he'll play the Green Lantern too close to Deadpool:

"I think there was some concern that I would make Green Lantern some kind of wise-cracking Wade Wilson-type, and that's not the case at all," he explained. "If that's what they wanted, why would I have screen-tested for the movie?"

[MTV]

Avatar

The final poster gives us more floating heads. [/Film]

Lesbian Vampire Killers

New images give us some busty bloodsuckers. [ShockTillYouDrop]

The Wolfman

The werewolf movie has earned itself an R rating from the MPAA "for bloody horror, violence and gore." [ShockTillYouDrop]

True Blood

We'll be seeing more of vampire Pam next season. Kirstin Bauer is being upgraded to series regular, and Pam is getting a "meaty" storyline — and maybe a girlfriend. [The Hollywood Reporter]

Lost

Jin and Sun have been filming scenes set in the alternate reality at the Turtle Bay Hilton. In those scenes, we'll also see Keamy, Omar, and Russian Other Mikial. [DarkUFO]

Striptease workout entrepreneur Sheila Kelley will be in at least four episodes this season, but won't be playing corporate spy Kendall. As for whether her stripping skills will coming into play:

"Once you see what I'm doing on Lost, you'll get the humor in that. I guess you can say I'm bringing some of the skills onto Lost, but not as obviously as you might think."

She also says she (Kelley, not her character) is "obsessed" with Sayid, leading to speculation that she'll have some scenes with Naveen Andrews. [E!]

And a set spy grabbed a photo of the new submarine. Larger image at the link. [DarkUFO]

Fringe

Walter's wife and Peter's mother has been cast at last. Irish actress Orla Brady will play the smart and likable third member of the Bishop family. [EW]

Better Off Ted

Creator Victor Fresco says that we'll see some progress in Linda and Ted's relationship by the end of the season, and the relationship between Linda and Veronica will begin to thaw. The two women will have a few adventures together and will develop a grudging, but mutual, respect. Ted's wilder brother comes to town, played by Eddie McClintock. Ted's brother hasn't had a lot of luck with Jobs, so Ted gets him a job at Veridian Dynamics. But his brother screws up one too many times, so Ted lands him a job selling lab equipment. Phil and Lem end up being his best customers, buying all sorts of stuff they don't need, including a cadaver supply membership. Key line: "Every day we get a new dead body whether we're finished with the old one or not." The show also gets a new cast member in Merrin Dungey. She appears in three or four episodes, including one episode where Linda tries to comfort her and ends up accused of sexual harassment. But Veridian deals with its sexual harassment problem by having it reclassified as a disease so that no one can sue for it. [E!]

Heroes

This season's 19th episode is titled "Brave New World." [Spoiler TV]

Additional reporting by Josh Snyder.

Green Lantern:

Like last year's Iron Man movie, we'll get a sense of why Hal is in the Green Lantern costume, not just what the costume is, and the most interesting scenes will involve Hal out of his costume. Also, this won't be a traditional origin story, that labors over setting up the character, says Ryan Reynolds:

It is [an origin story] to a certain degree, but it's not a labored origin story, where the movie [truly] begins in the third act. The movie starts when it starts. We find out Hal is the guy fairly early on, and the adventure begins.

[MTV via Cinemablend]

Jonah Hex:

Here's a new synopsis for this fantastical cowboy movie, releasing next June:

Jonah Hex (Josh Brolin) is a scarred drifter and bounty hunter of last resort, a tough and stoic gunslinger who can track down anyone…and anything. Having survived death, Jonah's violent history is steeped in myth and legend, and has left him with one foot in the natural world and one on the "other side." His only human connection is with Leila (Megan Fox), whose life in a brothel has left her with scars of her own. But Jonah's past is about to catch up with him when the U.S. military makes him an offer he can't refuse: in exchange for his freedom from the warrants on his head, he must track down and stop the dangerous terrorist Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich). But Turnbull, who is gathering an army and preparing to unleash Hell, is also Jonah's oldest enemy and will stop at nothing until Jonah is dead. Based on the legendary graphic novel, "Jonah Hex" is an epic adventure thriller about one man's personal quest for redemption against the vast canvas of the battle between good and evil.

[CinemaBlend]

Doctor Who:

Fans are speculating based on watching the filming that Rory (Arthur Darvill) will be traveling in the TARDIS, and will turn up in episodes 1, 6, 8, and 9. Possibly, he joins the TARDIS crew after Amy meets River Song and finds out about the great future that River and the Doctor share. And apparently "The End Of Time" features Sinead Keenan as Addams, one of the mysterious shape-shifting Vinvocci.

And the fans have come up with this somewhat speculative list of the season's episodes, with writers and directors:

1. "The Eleventh Hour" (w: Steven Moffat, d: Adam Smith)
2. "TBA" (w: Moffat, d: Adam Gunn)
3. "TBA" (w: Mark Gatiss, d: Adam Gunn)
4/5 "The Time Of Angels"/"The Flesh And Stone" (w: Moffat, d: Smith)
6. "Vampires Of Venice" (w: Toby Whithouse, d: Jonny Campbell)
7. "TBA" (w: Gareth Roberts or Amanda Coe, d: ?)
8/9. "TBA"/"Cold Blood" (w: Chris Chibnall, d: Ashley Way)
10. "Vincent And The Doctor (working title?)" (w: Richard Curtis, d: Jonny Campbell)
11. "TBA" (w: Gareth Roberts, d: ?)
12/13. "TBA" (w: Moffat, d: ?)
14. Christmas special (w: Moffat, d: ?)

[GallifreyBase and GallifreyBase]

And here are a couple of new photos (which aren't particularly startling) from "The End Of Time Part 1". [Den Of Geek]

Dollhouse:

The show is casting its last ever episode — unless you all convince every Nielsen family you know to tune in on Friday! — and we'll meet a new Active, named Romeo. He's a big bruiser with a shaved head and tattoos — which you might think would limit his versatility. He can be programmed to be anything — as long as it involves having lots of tattoos. [E! Online]

Fringe:

Don't let the mentions of Kirk Acevedo in press releases for upcoming episodes fool you. Acevedo is gone, and won't be coming back. [E! Online]

In episode 2x15, we'll meet Carla, a "smart, interesting, quirky" scientist in her late 20s or early 30s. [SpoilerTV]

FlashForward:

Dominic Monaghan was on KTLA talking about what's next for his character on this show. [SpoilerTV]

And because the U.S. is now behind Australia on this show, here's the promo for next week's episode, "Buddha In The Ruins":

And also because of that fact, here are some details about Thursday's episode, "A561984." The mystery lady who's called about Demetri's murder looks over some newspaper articles, and then Demetri and Mark go after her, and it ends in a gunfight. Lloyd makes a statement to the public which ends up with a gun shooting at him. Simon goes to the FBI and looks at the towers, saying they are his towers — but he designed them in 1992 and they were created in 1991. Mark loses his job. The mystery of Demetri's wedding is explained. D. Gibbons is revealed — and turns out to be linked to someone we know. Lloyd and Olivia seem to be getting along, and the episode ends with a Lloyd/Olivia cliffhanger. [The ODI]

True Blood:

Prison Break's Marshall Allman is joining the cast as Tommy Mickens, Sam Merlotte's long lost brother who works at a Tire Depot in Arkansas. [Hollywood Reporter]

And in the season's second episode, we'll meet two more members of the Mickens clan, the fiftysomething Melinda Mickens and her husband Joe Lee. Plus Crystal Norris, a barefoot sundress-wearing woman who shares an electric connection with Jacob before vanishing into the forest. And Ruby Jean Reynolds, a homophobic African American woman being cared for in a private facility; a German werewolf seen in a World War II flashback; Calvin Norris, a rugged, bare-chested man who's upset when the police search his trailer; and Shane And Kris, two hillbillies who disrespect the dead — and when Shane won't apologize, Tara beats him up. Plus a biker/werewolf who menaces Sookie. [SpoilerTV]

Smallville:

And in case you didn't already know this, the CW is still hot to trot to get a tenth season of this "wake me when he's Superman" show. [E! Online]

And just in case we didn't already share them, here are a couple new pics of JSA members Stargirl and Dr. Fate, plus a higher-res pic of Hawkman. [OSCK]

Heroes:

Here are some new season four promo pics. [SpoilerTV]

Additional reporting by Josh C. Snyder.

Doctor Who:

In an interview with Bullz-Eye.com to promote Pirate Radio, fifth series writer Richard Curtis revealed who will be playing featured guest star Vincent Van Gogh:

Well, we've got a brilliant guy playing Vincent van Gogh – which is who it's about – who you should look up on YouTube. He's a guy called Tony Curran, who really could not look more like. He's a wonderful actor who was in this brilliant movie called "Red Road" that came out, a rather serious movie.

He also mentioned they start shooting the episode in about a month. [Blogtor Who]

Elsewhere, a very Scottish-sounding John Barrowman appeared on GMTV with Lorraine to promote his new concert DVD and talk about "The End of Time." Skip to 2:15 as he slips back into his American accent to discuss his role, which apparently is just "an appearance." [Planet Gallifrey]

Dollhouse:

I think it's been fairly well reported that Alan Tudyk is coming back as Alpha, but now we've got a photo of him and a description of episodes 2.7 and 2.8, in which he appears:

DOLLHOUSE season 2 episode 7 and 8 "Meet Jane Doe/A Love Supreme" - Echo struggles to control her multiple memory downloads; Topher discovers the dangers of science that will have devastating effects on the future; the Dollhouse fears Alpha has returned to seek his revenge; the Actives turn against their handlers.

And here's that picture. [Spoiler TV]

Michael Ausiello reports English actor Adam Godley, probably best known to American audiences for his role as Father Ybarra in The X-Files: I Want to Believe is joining the cast as Clyde, "a genius who holds secrets to the Dollhouse." The role is recurring as any role can be when there are less than ten episodes left in the series. He also has a complete breakdown of the air dates for the remaining episodes: [EW.com]

Dec. 4: two episodes
Dec. 11: two episodes
Dec 18: two episodes
Jan 8: one episode
Jan 15: one episode
Jan 22: one episode (series finale)

Finally, here are a bunch more promo pics for the next four episodes. [Spoiler TV]

Thor:

Another day, another casting possibility for Kat Dennings. Apparently, Dennings twittered something about "loving Hell", which naturally means she will play Hela, the Asgardian goddess of death. [Spoiler TV]

Meanwhile, Variety reports she's playing "Darcy, who works with Natalie Portman's Jane Foster character." That's probably the same person as the previously reported Marcy Lewis, but who really knows? At this point, it's probably just safe to assume Kenneth Branagh has actually turned Thor into a one-woman show, starring Dennings in all the parts, including Thor. [IGN]

Chuck:

Here's a six-minute preview of the third season, complete with clips from the first five episodes:

According to Michael Ausiello, co-creator Chris Fedak says Anna Wu won't be in the first thirteen episodes, but she could be in the newly ordered last six, if only because they haven't been written yet. He also notes that her character's absence from the Buy More will be mentioned early next season. Finally, Fedak says the extra six episodes forced them to either slow down the story they were already telling or expand it. They opted to expand it, and are treating those last six as "Season 3.2" of Chuck. [ChuckTV.net]

And, last and sort of least, here are a couple photos tweeted from a season 3 photo shoot.

Fringe:

Here are three promo pics for episode 2.10, "Grey Matters", in which Walter gets a glimpse of the past: [Spoiler TV]

Heroes:

Here's a sneak peek and a promo for episode 4.11, "The Fifth Stage": [Spoiler TV]

For those who prefer to keep their audio and their visual separate, here are some promo pics:

And here's a scoop from Adam of TV Guide Mega Buzz: [Spoiler TV]

Todd Stashwick (The Riches) kicks off his guest role in Monday's episode. He plays Eli, who fills the void as Samuel's right-hand man now that Edgar (Ray Park) has split from the carnival. Also, expect to see a lot of Eli: He has the ability to replicate.

Smallville:

Michael Ausiello has the scoop on whether Warrior Angel is really going to be Chloe's love interest:

He is, but per exec producer Brian Petersen, "There's a wink behind it." And what about a real, non-winky love interest? "I have promised that we're going to give Chloe a relationship this year, and rest-assured, that was not just a tease. She will have a relationship this year." Does this guy have a name? Teases BP: "We'll know [who he is] in ‘Warrior.'"

Also, there will be Justice Society members seen in the upcoming movie Absolute Justice beyond Hawkman, Doctor Fate, and Stargirl, but these will be only glimpses. Brian Peterson does promise there will be several of them, though. Let's hope Ma Hunkel finally gets her due. [EW.com]

Finally, though V is on a break, there's apparently no chance Laura Vandervoort will return as Supergirl, much as she might like to. [Spoiler TV]

Green Lantern:

Ryan Reynolds spoke to MTV about his next big movie, and he mentioned how awesome the constume is: [IGN]

"Seeing the prototypes for the Green Lantern costumes was a huge moment," he says. "It was a moment when I was like, 'This is happening, and it's happening in the right way.' That's a pretty cool, definitive moment for me."

Deadpool:

Reynolds also talked about what he wanted to see in his upcoming Deadpool spinoff movie: [IGN]

"Everyone is always looking for that one line, 'What is that character?' and for me it's kind of like, 'There's a guy, and he's in a highly militarized comedic fame spiral,'" the actor explains. "That's not an easy thing to write — an entire screenplay, let alone a franchise. I had a blast playing Wade [in Wolverine]. Every line I had in that was stuff I thought he would say. It wasn't something that a writer said to me. It was fun to really create that character, including everything he spits out of his awful mouth."

V:

As the series heads into hiatus, star Morena Baccarin talked to E! Online about the dynamic she has with Scott Wolf's character, the conflicted newsman Chad Decker: [E! Online]

The relationship is definitely going to keep going in whatever strange direction it's going now. You don't really know if they're going to fight each other, love each other, or if she's going to eat him. You don't know what's going to happen! It gets really interesting in the episode that comes out on Tuesday. Something happens to his character that makes him very dependent on us. He has to sort of battle with his will to see what he's going to do. It's a very interesting dynamic.

Lost:

A tweet-sized filming update for season six. Apparently, "characters Sun, Locke & Claire spotted at Manoa trail head yesterday." [Lyly Ford Blog]

Avatar:

Here's a new Norwegian poster that's all about the disembodied heads.

Wolfman:

Benicio Del Toro's upcoming Wolfman movie has a new international poster:

The Book of Eli

Denzel Washington's post-apocalyptic thriller has a new poster out that is long on Denzel Washington, short on the post-apocalyptic:Cinema Blend

While Ryan Reynolds gets into shape for his superhero role as Hal Jordan, the film's director explains to Empire Magazine just how much work it's going to take to make this world a reality.

"It's daunting. Just the process, something like 1,300 visual effects shots, it's mind-blowing, quite honestly...It's energised by a battery on the planet of Oa, which taps into the willpower of everyone in the universe..."From that ring you can form constructs. So if you got into a fight, you could form a giant fist. Or a fighter plane."

But that's not all that's revealed, apparently the concept art from months back is spot on, and we'll get to see the Green Lantern travel through space.

"He's the only superhero to my knowledge who regularly goes to another planet. Superman and Batman were essentially locked into a particular city. The Lantern isn't so Earthbound."

The Green Lantern will be released in 2011.

[via Coventry Telegraph]

I can't help it; I know that zombies are/were the big thing, but there's something about the current trend for undead superheroics that leaves me more than a little bored. I've got nothing against genres mixing and matching, but the original Marvel Zombies - with its horror movie logic and sense of humor, and its lack of need to have to deal with regular continuity allowing it to actually act as a complete story as opposed to something that pretty much needs to reset to the status quo by its conclusion - aside, there's something disappointing about this particular take on the walking (and flying, and running at superspeed) dead. Namely...

None Of Them Are Real Zombies
Again, Marvel Zombies excepted, the reanimated in Blackest Night and Necrosha aren't really zombies, exactly (Something that Blackest Night's creators, to their credit, keep saying in interviews. Even so, calling them Black Lanterns feels like a dodge, because they're dead characters come back to life as undead monsters - They're so clearly zombie-influenced that the actual name doesn't matter). They're magically animated by the power of death itself, or by a psychic vampire (Don't ask), or whatever, and they don't conform to what we'd consider zombie rules: They're not slow, they don't eat brains, they're intelligent - and, in fact, generally have the personalities of their living selves - and they're all under the command of some central intelligence or leader with a specific mission. What kind of zombies are that organized, you might ask yourself? Which brings us to...

We've Seen This All Before
The dead being brought back as pawns to use against our brave heroes? Old hat for superhero comics - In fact, Marvel even has multiple characters based around this concept (the Grim Reaper, the Black Talon... You could even argue that Brother - now Doctor - Voodoo would have some familiarity on the subject). The only thing that's new about this latest wave is the overwhelming scale of the risings... which is one of the few things legitimately taken from zombie culture. Which reminds me.

Enough With The Magic Cures Already
Zombies should be pretty easy to beat. If Simon Pegg and Nick Frost can take care of some, after all, how hard can it be? But not these superhero zombies; no, they're not only gifted with magical regenerative powers that somehow don't take them to a fully regenerated state, but they also have very specific ways to be defeated, apparently: Blowing their heads off? Not going to work, it seems. Setting fire to them? Well, it keeps them busy for awhile, but otherwise... Nah. But keep calm and show no signs of emotion and they shut down (All of that from Blackest Night, which, in its defense is not only a fun superhero story but, in Blackest Night: Superman and Blackest Night: Batman has some really great examples of superhero comics ripping off some well-known horror movie cliches - If you've not seen Martha Kent be chased through a cornfield at night by an undead Lois Lane, or Commissioner Gordon use a double-barreled shotgun against an army of the undead while carrying his crippled daughter over his shoulder, you've missed out on some wonderfully enjoyable over-the-top moments of recent comics). Seriously, comic creators: what's that all about?

Death Is Never The End In Superhero Comics, Anyway
Ultimately, the problem with superheroic zombies is that the rules of death don't work the same way in superhero comics as they do in almost every other fiction. We're used to resurrection in superhero comics, and that works against the story from the very beginning; Blackest Night, for example, has to not only make the reader believe that the dead rising is not only a horrific thing, but also an unusual one - Which, considering that Superman, Green Lantern, Flash, Green Arrow, Hawkman and Robin have all "died" and been resurrected at some point in their careers, is a pretty tricky thing to do; Necrosha takes place in the X-Men series of titles, which has become so full of resurrected characters that characters within the story joke about the pearly gates having been replaced by a revolving door. Without the belief that death is the end - that it means that the person or character is gone and will never be seen again - the very idea of an army of the undead is weakened, because the possibility of a return is always there, and in many cases, expected to happen.

Mixing zombies with superheroes doesn't automatically mean failure - Despite all my "I know you've said they're not zombies and they're not acting like zombies, but come on, they're weird zombie-esque creatures, just admit it" problems with Blackest Night, it's full enough of melodrama, derring-do and humor to make me kind of love it - but of all the horror genres to bring superheroes into, it's one of the most problematic. I can get why comic publishers would want to jump onboard the bandwagon, but... Aren't there other horror monsters better suited to this kind of thing? I mean, Marvel: Paul Cornell gave you Dracula on the moon. That's a great gift right there...

Talking to both Collider and MTV, Haley said that he didn't know anything about the role other than the internet rumors, but that he's ready to start learning:

I know the guys that are doing it. It's exciting to me... It makes me want to go get the Green Lantern comics and start reading up.

We're unconvinced... and worried about Haley overspending his geek cred with Rorschach, Freddy Krueger and now Sinestro (Not to mention his Human Target role on TV). But what do you think?

Let us today pay tribute to the humble dinosaur. Without dinosaurs, Michael Crichton would have only been that complete loser who wrote The Andromeda Strain, museums would be tumbleweed-strewn burned-out shells of buildings, and The Land Before Time would have been ninety minutes worth of poignant shots of ‘tree-stars'. And comic books? Comic books would have gone the way of The Land Before Time. No other medium uses dinosaurs like comics uses dinosaurs. Below, see the top five dino-fights in comics and forget sad-eyed apatosauri forever.

5. The fifth-place dino fight wins a spot in this line-up through its originality and choice of dinosaur. When planning a dinosaur fight, so many people automatically go for the T-Rex. So many focus on conflict among dinosaurs, or among dinosaurs and humans. These people, while holding higher places on this list, will never understand the dignity, the good will, and yes, the poetry, of an organized pterodactyl strike.

(Some sticklers will recognize this as a still from the Batman: The Brave and the Bold animated series and say that it shouldn't be counted as it is not technically a comic. To you, I repeat Plastic Man's immortal words: "Are you seeing what I'm seeing? Because I'm seeing gorillas, riding pterodactyls, with harpoon guns, stealing a boat.")


That's right. Feel shame, pedants. Feel shame.

4. Our fourth-best dinosaur fight appears in Wolverine: Old Man Logan. Have a look.

‘What's so special about that,' you say? This:

A T-Rex chasing a jeep? Please. They did that in Jurassic Park.

A T-Rex chasing a jeep while people are shooting at it? Better.

A T-Rex chasing a jeep while a blind man shoots at it? By god, that's a good fight.

3. The third fight in this series starts on an ordinary, average day. Batman and the Green Lantern are hanging out in the Batcave and an alien monster attacks. You know, the kind of thing that happens when there's no big crossover event going on but something needs to happen in the premiere issue of The Brave and the Bold.

Because the attacking alien is a glowing energy-creature fifty feet tall, batarangs don't do much. Fortunately, there is one thing that Batman keeps in his cave that might do the trick; a giant animatronic dinosaur that Green Lantern can control with his ring.

Look at that. You can see why it wins the bronze. This fight is pure technical perfection. Batcave: check. Aliens: check. Batman and Green Lantern: check. Dinosaur: check.

What's that you say? It's not a real dinosaur? That's right. It's a robot. Leading to my final point.

Robots: check.

The fight is so awesome that even Batman has to take cover.

2. The second place fight snuck into the back pages of the final issues of DC's recently-completed Wednesday Comics. Hawkman, the superhero with the silliest headgear in the comics universe, fought a T-Rex. Unfortunately for him, he chose to taunt said Rex, and it responded the way all Tyrannosaurs do when you taunt them, or even when you don't. It kicked the crap out of him, and chased him to the beach and into the ocean. As it turns out, that was his clever plan all along, because Aquaman had come along as back-up.

One little picture can capture so much. A man body-surfing. A giant seahorse. An unrecognizable blur that turns out to be a squid tangling around a tyrannosaurus's legs. But none of those things are what made this fight take the second-place spot.

Look at the T-Rex's tail.

Yes. That's a shark. It's true that sharks inspire a lot of terror, but that's only because in the water they are hundreds of pound of muscle, thousands of teeth, perfectly streamlined, and probably heading for your legs . . . right . . . now.

Out of the water, pretty much all they do is twitch and asphyxiate. That doesn't stop this shark, though. If all it can do is gnaw some dino tail-tip, then that is what is going happen. Never have I seen such a perfect tribute to both the viciousness and the nobility of these often misunderstood creatures. It is like a whole Shark Week squeezed into one panel. One panel with a dinosaur in it.

1. This is Devil Dinosaur from Marvel's Nextwave.

This is Devil Dinosaur shattering a champagne flute in anticipation of kicking the crap out of the protagonists.

This is the protagonists pushing Devil Dinosaur's perfectly round mansion off of its foundations in the two-mile-high floating city it rests on. (Just go with it.)

This is Devil Dinosaur's reaction.

This is Devil Dinosaur's house bouncing off a mountain like a marble off an anthill.

And exploding.

It has to be said that I'm more of a DC person than a Marvel person. It also has to be said that there is good-natured rivalry maintained between those two companies.

Most importantly, though, it has to be said that, without question, Marvel wins the gold in this competition. They had to. They left everything out on the field, and it shows.

Honestly, this fight would have placed if it had stopped at the champagne flute move, because when a Tyrannosaurus Rex in a smoking jacket shatters a champagne flute prior to a fight, the reader has to respect the artistry inherent in that image. But the floating city, the globe-house, the game of pinball with the Alps, the revolver in a dinosaur's claw; it all added up to the most incredible, awe-inspiring, and piss-your-pants funny dinosaur fight of all time. My hat is off to you, Marvel. If this is all you ever do to make the world a better place, be proud. You have succeeded.

The Hollywood Reporter has the story that Warners have pulled plans for the movie, starring Ryan Reynolds as test pilot-cum-space cop Hal Jordan, to be shot in New South Wales due to the strength of the Australian dollar against the US dollar; yesterday, the Australian dollar hit a 27-year high against the US dollar, making the shoot 30% more expensive to Warners than it had been when plans were first announced six months ago. The studio released a statement that read,

After working closely with our partners at the NSW Film and Television Office (Screen NSW) and examining every scenario, we have decided to move the production of 'Green Lantern.' We are extremely grateful for the assistance we have received from the NSW Government, Fox Studios and the NSW filmmaking community.

No new location was revealed for the Green Lantern shoot, but rumors suggest Canada or Mexico are likely candidates. Green Lantern is scheduled for release in Summer 2011.

Lights out for 'Green Lantern' in Oz [Hollywood Reporter]

We hadn't realized quite how many space zombies there are out there — especially if you throw in some edge cases like the Reavers. Zombies have been ruling the spaceways for decades, since Plan 9 From Outer Space and Astro Zombies (which is technically about a human space engineer who uses astronaut tech to turn Earthlings into zombies.)

Thanks to Ira Wile, Angela Cooper, Morgan Johnson, Austin Grossman, Greta Christina, Derek Powazek, Brent Cox, Alasdair Stuart, Kayobi, 92BuicLeSabre, and anyone else we missed!

Driq of Cliq, from Green Lantern.

Lately, Green Lantern is all about the space zombies, with the huge galaxy-spanning Blackest Night crossover event. Everyone who's ever died in DC Comics is being reincarnated as a "Black Lantern," wielding a super-powerful set of rings that Batman's skull coughed up. (Or something.) But really, my favorite space zombie from Green Lantern has to be Driq of Cliq, the lantern who dies at the hands of Sinestro — but his ring keeps him alive, and sort of sentient, indefinitely. He shambles through a ton of issues of the comic, before finally coming undone when Hal Jordan/Parallax deactivates all the power rings. Driq is like a space zombie super-mascot.

The Reavers from Firefly/Serenity

Okay, so they're not technically undead, but the Reavers are totally zombies in every way that matters. They're mindless shells of human beings who've lost their humanity and everything else except the lust to kill and destroy. Like the "Rage" virus survivors in 28 Days Later, the Reavers are pale, posthuman and terrifying. They haunt the spaceways, their vicious howling almost echoing through the void.

The Husks in Mass Effect

The geth, merciless alien artificial intelligences, have a secret weapon: they impale dead people on dragon's teeth, mechanical spikes which turn the corpses into Husks, zombie-like reanimated soldiers. The dead people's organs and insides are liquified and replaced by cybernetics.

The victims in Lifeforce

Note: We debated endlessly whether Lifeforce was about zombies or vampires — the three aliens discovered aboard the spaceship are definitely vampires, since they devour your life force. And it's based on a book called The Space Vampires. On the other hand, the vampires come to Earth and start renanimating loads of humans, who definitely seem more zombie-like.

The "death troopers" in Star Wars: Death Troopers by Joe Schreiber

We'll be reviewing this book in a few days, but here's one of the entrants for Del Rey's book trailer contest. The damaged prison barge Purge finds an Imperial Star Destroyer floating dead in space, and the Purge sends people over to scavenge for parts — but the Star Destroyer isn't empty after all. A new plague has turned some of its crew into the living dead, who roam in packs. Writes Schreiber: "They traveled together now, their swollen, disease-ravaged bodies pressing against one another, death as the final brotherhood... Their eyes never left his, and there was a slinking primitve slyness to their movement... Sartoris saw ropy strands of drool swinging from their mouths, human and nonhuman alike."

The Swarm in Sly Mongoose by Tobias Buckell.

Yet another set of zombies created by evil science, the Swarm is a bioweapon created by the distant human alliance — it turns you into a shambling, semi-telepathic zombie. And all of the zombies in the Swarm form a neural net, a hive mind that gets smarter the more people they bite.

Space Zombies

They're terrifying! They're relentless! They're Canadian! Triple Take Productions has crafted several black-and-white short films about zombies from space — including Space Zombies: Terror From The Sky!, in which alien zombies come to Earth to transplant cat brains into people. Or into themselves. Ummmm... it's not quite clear. There's definitely a cat brain transplant thing happening, in any case. I can think of several people who would be greatly improved by having cat brains transplanted into them.

Kai from Lexx

The last of the Brunnen-G, Kai is killed trying to save his people from the Divine Shadow — but instead of being destroyed, his corpse is reanimated as a Divine Assassin, who cannot be killed. And that's just one thing on the long list of stuff Kai cannot do, after being dead. Until finally, he wins his life back in a chess game. (Thanks, Disco Dave!)

The Necromorphs in Dead Space

Reanimated by some kind of unknown alien micro-organism, the Necromorphs are human corpses brought back to life, to attack and destroy the living. Any human who dies rapidly turns into a Necromorph, usually due to an Infector, which penetrates your skull with its sharp proboscis. Some Necromorphs are hideously mutated.

The Flood from Halo

These parasitic alien life forms create bodies for themselves out of the recently deceased, creating a quasi-zombie army that sprouts tentacles instead of human limbs or sensory arrays instead of heads. They alter the host organism's DNA by digesting, creating weird parodies of the human form.

I'm not terribly optimistic that comic books will ever regain the kind of popular readership, particularly among young people, that the medium enjoyed in decades past, but Wednesday Comics seems like the sort of thing that has the best shot of reaching new readers. With so many different characters and creative teams to choose from, even the most skeptical readers will likely find at least a few stories that pique their interests, and the (mostly) continuity-free stories provide an ideal entry point for those just discovering the DC universe.

That said, Wednesday Comics is more than just a clever gimmick. DC has put together some great writers and artists for the stories, including Neil Gaiman and Michael Allred on "Metamorpho", Kurt Busiek and Joe Quinones on "Green Lantern", and the current Power Girl team of Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner on "Supergirl". Throughout, there is a palpable sense that these stories are labors of love for the writers and artists; even the stories that don't work seem to be made with more care than some perfunctory fill-in book, and I'm more likely to revisit these stories to see if I missed something than some gratuitous, pointless event tie-in. (Countdown: Arena, I am, as always, looking at you.)

The best stories in this anthology are those that make the best of their unique format. Gaiman and Allred's "Metamorpho" makes great use of the 14" X 20" dimensions the broadsheet pages give them, crafting entire days as a single panel that its characters then wander through. Such a trick might be jarring on a smaller page, but it works brilliantly here. "Metamorpho" also features a support feature where three children answer what they claim to be reader questions about the Element Man. The fact that these children seem to come from a strange alternate universe where Metamorpho is absurdly popular only adds to the charm.

Similar structural trickery can be seen in "The Flash." Under the banner of "Flash Comics", we see multiple small comics in the various issues, including "The Flash", "Iris West", and "Gorilla Grodd". Karl Kerschl and Brenden Fletcher have put together an entire world within a world here; there's a real sense that "Flash Comics" has run in the Sunday newspapers for years, largely unchanged since the 1960's, and this is simply the first time we've noticed. It's a fun device, particularly when much of its story relies on some of the wackiest comic book science this side of the Silver Age.

There are a bunch of other stories in Wednesday Comics that I would recommend without hesitation. John Arcudi and Lee Bermejo's "Superman" is both gorgeous to look at and manages to tell its story in the grandest, most iconic brushstrokes possible. It's a story that feels huge, even if the story only moves forward at a pace of three or four panels per week. My personal favorite, however, might just be "Supergirl", if only because there's something so gloriously, deliriously awesome about devoting most of the story to Kara chasing after her misbehaving pets. The fact that Streaky and Krypto are absolutely adorable probably helps, too.

Not every story is a triumph, though. Ben Caldwell's "Wonder Woman" is probably guilty of overreaching, trying to cram a cryptic, lyrical take on the Amazonian princess into such a small amount of space. The fact that each week features twenty to thirty panels on just one broadsheet page is probably the most obvious indication that he is trying to do too much in not enough space. I didn't really care for Paul Pope's take on "Strange Adventures", but part of the point of something like Wednesday Comics is to try out a wide variety of creative styles; I suppose it would be unlikely that I would be a fan of all of them.

Wednesday Comics is a breath of fresh air in an industry where superhero stories are increasingly stuck inside some fairly well-defined strictures. Its anthology approach and innovative format make sure that Wednesday Comics is quite unlike anything we've seen in quite some time, which should be more than enough to earn it a recommendation. The fact that the stories inside are actually quite good feels almost like a bonus.

Green Lantern

Comic book writer Rob Liefeld, who is close to the Green Lantern production, revealed some over-arching aspects of the setting and plot:

He has seen most of the storyboards for the Green Lantern film and he claims that it looks fantastic. He said that if they could translate what is on the storyboards to film, the movie would be amazing. Over one-third of the movie is set on OA, the home world of the Green Lanterns. The film will have numerous Green Lanterns, including fan favorite Kilowag and Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) mentor turned archenemy, Sinestro.

[Comic Book Movie]

Pandorum

Heading out to see Pandorum today? Here's a quick clip to tide you over until you get to the theater:

Pandorum Exclusive Clip

The Hobbit

Despite his claim that he doesn't want to play any more Gandalf-like characters, Ian McKellen says he will be returning as Gandalf the Grey, his favorite version of Gandalf and Peter Jackson's as well:

He slept in the hedgerows; he was closer to the earth and not quite so spiritual. He's also funnier — he's got more variety to him. We thought there was more scope in that Gandalf.

[CinemaBlend]

John Carter of Mars

Makeup tests are currently underway for the Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptation, and Lynn Collins, who plays the Martian princess Dejah Thoris says she won't appear in heavy prosthetics, but will instead have more of a "tropical island" look. [MTV Movies Blog]

True Blood

Stephen Moyer says that the third season of the hit series will be heavy on the werewolf action. [ShockTillYouDrop]

Supernatural

CW has a new promo for the post-apocalyptic episode "The End:"

V

Here is the promo that aired during last night's FlashForward:

[Ausiello]

The Sarah Jane Adventures

David Tennant will appear in two episodes of the third season. Here is the official description for the October 15th premiere:

In the first of this two-part adventure, Sarah Jane and the gang face the most dangerous day of their lives, as the rhino-like Judoon return. When prisoner Androvax the Destroyer crash-lands on Earth, a Veil is set free and starts to turn Earth's technology against itself. And his next intended victim is Sarah Jane.

And for the second part, airing October 16th:

As the Judoon fleet approaches Earth, it's a race against time to stop Androvax. But with Genetech's technology on the rampage, and Rani's parents taken prisoner, can anything stop the Army of the Infinitesimal?

The BBC also lists off some of the other oddities Sarah Jane and the crew will encounter:

The series also features an extraterrestrial girl who can make people play games against their will; a living painting; the inhabitants of a supposedly haunted house; and monsters who want to infect Earth with a strangely aggressive weed. Finally, there is a chance for Sarah Jane to find personal happiness with someone who could be the perfect person to complete her family.

[Blogtor Who]

Doctor Who

Darren Garrett shows off some of the character design for the animated Doctor Who: Dreamland:

[Blogtor Who]

Heroes

NBC has released an extended preview for the next episode, "Ink:"

Ice queen Tracy warms up to a powerful new man in the fourth episode, "Acceptance:"

[Heroes France]

FlashForward

Some very funereal photos from episode three, "137 Sekunden:"

[Spoiler TV]

And here is an interview with Sonya Walger and Joseph Fiennes:

And another with John Cho and Courtney B. Vance talking spoilers:

[Zap2it]

In an interview with Digital Spy, Sonya Walger says that FlashForward doesn't have the mythology of a show like Lost, instead focusing on the fallout from that single event. [Digital Spy]

Smallville

Here is the Canadian promo for tonight's season premiere:

[Spoiler TV]

Vampire Diaries

It's party drama on next week's episode, "Family Ties:"

Elena (Nina Dobrev) asks Stefan (Paul Wesley) to escort her to the town's annual Founder's Party. Vicki (Kayla Ewell) gets Tyler (Michael Trevino) to ask her to the party, then accuses him of trying to hide their relationship from his family. Zach (guest star Chris William Martin) reveals a useful family secret to Stefan. At the party, Damon (Ian Somerhalder) tells Elena a story about the Salvatore family's past, leaving Elena with questions that Stefan refuses to answer. Finally, Stefan takes action to get Damon out of his life for good. Steven R. McQueen, Sara Canning, Katerina Graham, Candice Accola and Zach Roerig also star.

[ShockTillYouDrop]

At least one casually dressed vamp hangs out in the sunny woodlands in the sixth episode, "The Lost Girls:"

[Spoiler TV]

Green Lantern:

Some new casting calls for this live-action superhero film don't really contain any surprises (they're in line with the script we reviewed ages ago), except maybe for Carol Ferris being an ex-pilot. But they do give us hope the film is moving forward despite some setbacks:

[CAROL FERRIS] 26-32, a smart and attractive woman with an MBA. She started as a pilot and now runs Ferris Aircraft. She is a work-a-holic...FEMALE LEAD

[DR. HECTOR HAMMOND] 27-35, Character actor who is austere and impersonal, he is real "scummy." He is a pathologist and also the son of a Senator.

[SINESTRO] Mid-30s to Mid-40s, he is smart, tough, intimidating and in great physical shape.

[ABIN SUR] Mid-30s to mid-40s, he is a great warrior.

[SpoilerTV]

Iron Man 2:

Edward Norton says that to the best of his knowledge, he's not in this film. But you never know — a cameo could easily be filmed and inserted between now and its release date. [MTV via ComicBookResources]

The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus:

Some new stills show just how decadent and wild this movie will really get. Nudity, dreamscapes and Verne Troyer! [IGN]

New Moon:

A new promo gives us more awesome Volturi action. Have you noticed there's a lot of mouth-breathing in this movie?

Dollhouse:

Eliza Dushku spills which Dollhouse regular gets to play with Summer Glau. And Enver Gjokaj and Dichen Lachman talk about Victor and Sierra's romance. [E! Online]

Fringe:

Some more promo photos from episode 2x03, "Fracture". [SpoilerTV]

FlashForward:

A casting call for episode eight introduces us to a character with an unforgettable name:

[HIGH ROLLER #2] 40s-60s, Male, Open to all ethnicities. Wealthy denizen of an upscale private gaming establishment. Finds himself quite entertaining, a Johnny Carson-type, but quick tempered when things don't go his way. Day player.

[SpoilerTV]

In an upcoming episode, Olivia (Sonya Walger) has to do lung surgery on a small child in a tense scene. In another scene, the main FBI agent heroes, Mark and Demetri, visit a Nazi in a German prison — he tells them he has information on the "event," but he won't spill unless he's released. [TV Guide via FlashForwardZilla]

Here's one new U.S. TV spot, plus a new Russian promo clip, and four new Spanish promo videos — just so you can get the international perspectives on this glimpse-the-future show. [FlashForward.PL and FlashForwardZilla]

Supernatural:

The title of episode 5x08 will be similar to that of a past episode. This time, it's "Are You There, God? It's Me, Sam Winchester." (Last year, it was "Dean Winchester.") [SpoilerTV]

Smallville:

The official title for episode 9x10 is "Disciple," and the Justice Society turns up in 9x11. Meanwhile, here are some new photos from the season opener, "Savior," plus a couple new pics from the second episode, "Metallo." [Kryptonsite]

Eastwick:

Another casting call — this show is looking for a few characters for its seventh episode:

[SUZY] In her early 20s, Caucasian, a pretty young thing, she is a teeny-tiny Abercrombie type. Raymond's date, she tries to make chit-chat when introduced to Kat, but is quick to feel the chill in the air...1 SCENE, POSSIBLE ONE DAY GUEST STAR (1)

[SILVER FOX-TYPE GENTLEMAN] Late 40s to late 50s. This silver fox-type gentleman and his much younger wife are perusing Roxie's paintings at a gallery showing. A self-possessed urbanite, he speaks authoritatively about the work, only to be surprised by Roxie's offbeat sales pitch and then unexpected show of temper...1 SCENE, POSSIBLE ONE DAY GUEST STAR (1)

[MUCH YOUNGER WIFE] Late 20s to early 30s. She is the Silver-Fox Type's much younger wife, seen in a splashy, tight Pucci outfit while attending a showing of Roxie's paintings. Smarter than she looks, she and her husband are equal parts appalled and amused by Roxie's strange sales pitch...1 SCENE sptv050769, POSSIBLE ONE DAY GUEST STAR (1)

[SpoilerTV]

And here's a new promo poster, with a catchy slogan. [SpoilerTV]

Additional reporting by Alexis Brown.

Production Weekly twittered yesterday that

Green Lantern's proposed Australian shoot is understood to be under threat after the rising Australian dollar has blown out production costs

If true, this could mean a second move for the movie's release date. Initially hoped for December 2010, Martin Campbell's adaptation of the long-running DC comic, starring Ryan Reynolds as test-pilot-turned-space-cop Hal Jordan, had already been pushed to summer 2011 before this news.

Production Weekly [Twitter]

I have a few ideas of my own that we'll get to in a moment, but first it's worth going straight to the source. Our own Graeme McMillan had a chance to talk with DC Executive Editor Dan Didio during Comic Con. Here's what he had to say regarding the whys and wherefores of Blackest Night:

Blackest Night, you're bringing a lot of people back as zombies for want of a better way of putting it...

They're not really zombies.

They're undead creatures who go around killing people.

Okay.

What's the purpose of doing this? Are you doing it for nostalgia, are you doing it to confound nostalgia in that you may be bringing characters back, but in a way that's different from what they expect...

I think so. There've been a lot of stories told about death, and killing of characters, over the last few years. Geoff came up with the idea for Blackest Night several years ago, and when it came time to move together, everything came together to where we are right now. But the Blackest Night story was always going to be the story that it is [now]. And part of that story was to explore the nature of death, we also explore a little bit about the concept of "revolving door death," as the story progresses, but more importantly, I think we really come back with a more defined sense of rules about what death really means in the DC universe.

I've said it somewhere else and I'll say it again, one of the mistakes we made [in terms of killing characters] was that we were going with quantity over quality. What we're really trying to do is be much smarter, and really, if somebody dies, it should have much stronger ramifications for the character, and the story, and across the universe.

Is it a possibility to undo deaths in this series?

There's a lot of things that have potential coming out of this. [Laughs]

Nice dodge.

Thank you! [Laughs]

Honestly, it's pretty hard to imagine Blackest Night won't be used as a massive vehicle for bringing dead characters back to life. After all, there's no way the Martian Manhunter or Aquaman are remaining dead forever, and I can't really think of a better place to revive them than in a massive company-spanning event that is all about the consequences of death. But that still doesn't mean Blackest Night is exclusively or even primarily about undoing superhero deaths, and that goes double for Necrosha.

So why then are both Marvel and DC launching massively death-obsessed stories so close together? What's the appeal of undead superheroes? Well, I have some theories…

1. Death has major dramatic and thematic heft.

Or it should, in theory. Death in comic books has been largely devalued ever since Superman came back to life after his bout with Doomsday in the nineties, turning death into little more than a brief retirement for temporarily unpopular characters. Indeed, the returns of such long dead heroes as Jason Todd, Bucky Barnes, and Barry Allen have made it crystal clear that a character's death is really just the start of the countdown for his or her return.

You would really have to go back over twenty years to find the last comic book deaths with real impact, including Barry Allen and Supergirl's heroic sacrifices in Crisis on Infinite Earths and Captain Marvel's painful death at the hands of a terminal illness. And, of course, two of those have since been more or less undone (and prior to Secret Invasion there was some definite playing around with Captain Marvel's real fate).

There have been attempts in recent years to take death seriously again, but most of these have been of the one step forward, two steps backward variety. Marvel promised the death of Captain America would indeed be permanent, and less than three years later Captain America: Reborn has begun. DC attempted to remove Bruce Wayne in Final Crisis without exactly killing him off, but the fact that his survival is a confirmed fact does somewhat cheapen the eulogies and tributes other characters have offered for him in recent months. Dramatic irony and pathos are both great things to have in a story, but they don't necessarily mix together terribly well.

As much as the revolving door of death has still been spinning freely, both companies have tried to reinvest death with some of its former impact. In DC's case, this has largely taken the form of focusing on characters whose deaths are a key part of the superheroes' origins. For Hal Jordan, this has been his father, the fearless test pilot Martin Jordan, while Barry Allen is haunted by the memory of his murdered mother (not to mention his father, who he believes was falsely accused of the crime). Of course, even this is not entirely consistent. Grant Morrison's Batman: RIP went so far as to suggest that not only was Thomas Wayne alive, but he was actually a psychopathic supervillain who was never really Bruce's father at all. (That was since disproved. Probably.)

Marvel, on the other hand, has simply done a better job resisting the urge to resurrect characters. As much as their claims regarding the permanence of Captain America's demise were soon shown to be false, they do seem to be treating death as a rather more final thing than DC. Secret Invasion was in part meant to reveal a recent rash of unlikely returns as part of the larger Skrull plot, although Hawkeye did manage to remain alive and human (and was even reunited with Mockingbird). As much as Janet van Dyne is probably coming back sooner or later, there are a whole bunch of characters, particularly mutants, that Marvel has killed off and left that way, thus leaving plenty of viable candidates for Necrosha's undead army.

What all of this has accomplished, really, is simply the sense that death can be permanent, and thus it's again possible to tackle death in comics in a way that is at least vaguely relatable to the world we live in. Blackest Night has already made much of the fact that there are many who never come back, and those who have are aberrations, cosmic freaks who should not be. These events are taking death in comic books one step further – death is no longer simple a way to underscore the seriousness of the latest threat, but is instead the threat itself.

Blackest Night and Necrosha are about confronting mortality and dealing with the inevitable through the quintessentially comic book means of having living superheroes fight their dead comrades. And, of course, if Marvel and DC can actually follow through with their promises to treat death more seriously and use it more sparingly in the aftermath of these events, then so much the better. Of course, that probably does mean they'll want to undo as many major deaths as possible while they still can…

2. You've got to bring these characters back sooner or later, so you might as well make a big production out of it.

For better or worse (and I know there are plenty of arguments that this is for the worse), comics are meant to be an infinite medium. To be sure, arcs within ongoing books can have clear beginnings and endings, but overall a character's story is meant to run and run forever. There's a reason Grant Morrison was able to somewhat plausibly imagine DC reaching the millionth issue of its books – ultimately, that basically is the goal of superhero comics.

Of course, that can create conflict with creating finite adventures that have their own stakes and consequences – in other words, telling actual stories. Much of the time, comics get by this by simply ignoring all previous stories that don't directly impact the current arc. (For instance, I'm fairly sure the time Superman and Wonder Woman spent a thousand years together fighting monsters is still in continuity, although you'd never know it from the way any of the characters interact.) This is rather more difficult to do when major characters actually die, which does generally necessitate some sort of change to the status quo.

But then, if the status quo changes too much, soon enough the call goes out for a return to the more iconic version. Kyle Rayner, Wally West, Bucky Barnes, and Dick Grayson must eventually hand the mantle back to Hal Jordan, Barry Allen, Steve Rogers, and Bruce Wayne. This has been particularly commonplace in recent years, as an era of self-consciously grim and gritty (and thus death-filled) comics have been replaced by ones more concerned with the history of the medium, often bringing back long forgotten elements and plot points from the Silver and Bronze Ages.

As such, you've got a whole bunch of dead characters with a whole bunch of comic book writers ready and willing to bring them back. And why bring all of them back piecemeal when you can turn it into one massive event? Thus the need for Blackest Night, and quite possibly for Necrosha as well. (Admittedly, there's not really enough known yet about Necrosha to say whether it explore similar territory, so some of this may only apply to Blackest Night.)

If there's one thing DC has arguably always done better than Marvel, it's turn massive continuity reboots into epic events. Crisis on Infinite Earths and Infinite Crisis might both be a little too impossibly vast in scope for their own good, but they do rather defiantly take ownership of what could otherwise be embarrassing admissions of creative failure (although the less said about Zero Hour the better).

Blackest Night is tackling about a big a topic as one can in the DC Universe without traipsing into that pesky multiverse, and both Dan Didio and event mastermind Geoff Johns have suggested they also want to explore more metaphysical territory. In this sense, Blackest Night could be somewhere between Johns's own Infinite Crisis and Grant Morrison's Final Crisis, which was all about (well, as much as it was all about anything) the moral order of the DC Universe, and whether good fundamentally had to triumph over evil.

Similarly, Blackest Night apparently wants to explore the cosmic underpinnings of why some characters have come back and why others haven't. It's a way of turning years of cheap shocks and inconsistent editorial decisions into a gigantic masterplan, and it might almost look elegant when all is said and done. But perhaps I'm being too lofty in my thinking. Perhaps it's as simple as…

3. Zombies are huge right now.

I'll admit that I don't always keep up with my cultural zeitgeists as much as I should, but I'm fairly sure zombies are supposed to be the new vampires. (Or are they the new pirates?) Certainly, the past decade has been kind to the walking dead, with movies like 28 Days Later and Shaun of the Dead becoming hits and books like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies somehow attaining both popular success and critical acclaim. And it seems like you can't go another day without news of some another ridiculous zombie version of a pop icon in the works.

And, of course, comics themselves have done very well with the undead. Zombies are a key part of a rotation of character types in the steady stream of "[BLANK] vs. [BLANK]" comics that also includes vampires, ninjas, robots, aliens, pirates, werewolves, cowboys, and Amazons. Marvel has had plenty of success with its Marvel Zombies franchise, which will continue at least as long as the House of Ideas has iconic covers to zombify. It's hard to argue zombies have made for a lot of high art in comics, but their stories have largely been good, goofy fun, and the sales figures certainly reflect a healthy readership for their stories.

As such, it makes a ton of sense to prominently feature zombies in your company's next big event. Even stripped of the particular wrinkle of bringing back prominent superheroes as undead killers, zombies seem to work just fine in abstraction, and there's every reason to think a "Green Lantern Corps vs. Zombies" or an "X-Men vs. Zombies" event would do very well for their respective companies – all the additional character stuff is just icing on the zombie cake.

The only slight problem with this is whether either Blackest Night or Necrosha actually, technically speaking, involves zombies. Dan Didio certainly doesn't seem to think the Black Lanterns can be considered zombies. I suppose it depends how important it is that the villains of Blackest Night partake in classically zombie activities, like, say, eating brains (something I wrongly suggested they would be doing in a post I wrote back in February).

All of this really sets up a technical argument over the definition of "zombie" that I'm not really qualified to have. I will say that whatever one's precise understanding of the concept, I'm pretty sure the Black Lanterns meet a lot of the requirements, and the undead mutants in Necrosha will probably be even closer, if only because their origins will be more explicitly supernatural, what with the villainous vampire Selene prominently involved.

Guinness World Records is currently double-checking before they provide official certification of the record, but it's hard to believe there's ever been a larger recitation of the oath than that of the over 4,200 fans gathered to watch the latest DC animated movie. To put that in the nerdiest perspective possible, the Green Lantern Corps itself only has 3,600 sectors of space under its protection.

As an observer of (not to mention participant in) the saying of the oath, I can safely report that the vast majority of those assembled really did know all the words, though there seemed to be some confusion in the crowd as to whether it's "blackest night" or "darkest night." Admittedly, this has varied over the years, although I suppose a certain ongoing comics mega-event has made it fairly clear which is the currently preferred version.

Green Lantern: First Flight comes out on DVD and Blu-Ray on Tuesday, July 28.

Considering the sheer volume of animation Bruce Timm and company have put out featuring the DC characters over the past seventeen years, it's frankly astonishing how little of it has involved Hal Jordan, with only Justice League: New Frontier and the briefest of cameos in Justice League Unlimited to his credit. Much like Wonder Woman, whose heretofore neglected origin provided the basis for the last DC animated movie, there's a lot of unexplored territory when it comes to Hal Jordan.

Thankfully, screenwriters Alan Burnett and Michael Allen make the most of this, and does not rely on the familiar beats of the Green Lantern origin story. Within the first ten minutes, Hal Jordan has received his ring from his dying predecessor Abin Sur, accepted his role as the Green Lantern, and decided to head out into space to better understand his new duties. What happens next is a story that, while far from perfect, is hugely refreshing in both its originality and its frequent craziness.

Brought before the immortal Guardians of the Universe so that they might assess his worthiness to serve in the Green Lantern Corps, Hal Jordan faces more than his fair share of anti-human prejudices. On the verge of losing his ring before he even really gets to use it, Jordan is saved by the legendary Green Lantern Sinestro, who says he could be of use in hunting down the murderers of Abin Sur.

After a sequence on an alien planet that feels vaguely like a cross between the Denzel Washington corrupt cop movie Training Day and the Mos Eisley cantina scene from Star Wars, Sinestro and Jordan trace Abin Sur's death back to Kanjar Ro, once a fairly unremarkable warlord who recently acquired the fabled yellow element, a power source that could potentially overthrow the Guardians and the green element that powers their corps. But, as is inevitable in both superhero and cop movies, there's a crooked officer in the force, and it's only a matter of time before Hal Jordan finds himself on the wrong side of a conspiracy.

Although Green Lantern: First Flight does end with the customary massive fight between the superhero and the supervillain, a surprising amount of the film really does play more like a cop drama than a superhero movie. The Green Lanterns eat lousy food in a precinct substation, Sinestro is reprimanded by his superiors for his overly violent interrogation techniques, and so on. This makes a welcome change from the familiar story beats of the average superhero movie, and it's this narrative freshness that goes a long way towards making up for the film's flaws.

Chief among those flaws is the often tedious exposition (Hal Jordan at one point even asks whether he should be taking notes). DC Comics in particular has a number of heroes whose backstories revolve around complicated power hierarchies and fantastic elements, which can make it difficult to elegantly explain the setup to those unfamiliar with the characters. Wonder Woman got around the problem of clunky exposition with a lot of knowing humor, as Nathan Fillion's Steve Trevor's one-liners acknowledged the more ridiculous parts of the Wonder Woman mythos. Hal Jordan is too much the straightforward hero to play that role in Green Lantern: First Flight, and the weirdly catty Guardians are more strange than amusing. The first section of the movie, which features the most sustained deliberations between the Guardians, is easily the weakest part.

Still, once Sinestro takes over, Green Lantern: First Flight shifts into high gear and only rarely falters. Much of that is due to Victor Garber's performance, which ably captures the character's slide from potential ally to fascist antihero to all-out villain. Equal parts calculating, menacing, and charming, Garber is the standout of Green Lantern: First Flight.

Beyond Garber's Sinestro, voice director Andrea Romano has once again assembled a cast that is solid throughout, from Christopher Meloni's Hal Jordan to Tricia Helfer's Boodika to Kurtwood Smith's Kanjar Ro. Admittedly, it's a bit odd to hear Michael Madsen as Kilowog after Dennis Haysbert so perfected the character on Justice League. Alan Burnett and Michael Allen's script wisely makes the most of the recasting by tweaking Kilowog's character, making him a gruffer interpretation of the characters whose respect Jordan must really work to earn.

Director Lauren Montgomery follows up strongly on her impressive work in Wonder Woman. Green Lantern constructs are perhaps the most memorable visual element of the film, and Montgomery does not disappoint with Hal Jordan's giant green fly swatter, gold club, and so forth. Featuring a menagerie of aliens in the cast, the film's character design is a huge asset, with the four-legged Weaponers of Qward proving particularly memorable.

Still, much like the rest of Green Lantern: First Flight, the direction has its flaws. There are a couple reaction shots that drag on far, far too long for no apparent reason, and much as these are minor faults it's hard to figure why they weren't edited down. The bigger problem is the film's CGI. Although the CGI has come a long way from the notoriously bad inserts seen on Justice League, they still remain jarringly different from the rest of the animation, and it's hard to see such elements (particularly when they play a fairly major role in the film's climax) as anything but a liability.

Green Lantern: First Flight might be a slight step down from Wonder Woman, but it's still a hugely entertaining film that dares to do something different with the superhero genre. Throw in the DC animated movie's giddy use of PG-13 language (the films have gotten better about this since Superman: Doomsday, but there's something still delightfully wrong about Sinestro telling Hal Jordan that, "I own your ass") and gleefully grotesque ways in which the film kills off characters, and Green Lantern: First Flight is definitely some good fun, even if it's decidedly not old-fashioned.

New Moon:

Here are a few new stills the studio sent us. I think only one of them is actually new. But now, they're all in insanely high res, in case you need a new desktop pattern.

Aliens In The Attic:

We came across a bunch of new clips and TV spots on Youtube, for this High School Musical-meets-Gremlins film, coming out July 31.

And here are a slew of new stills. Could this just possibly be the most hotly anticipated Ashley Tisdale alien movie of the summer? Just possibly! [IGN]

Doctor Who:

As someone pointed out yesterday, there's a reason why the Doctor, Amy and River Song are all hanging out on the beach together in that new scene being filmed. It looks like they're investigating a crashed retro rocket that's still smouldering, with fires around it. Here's a detail from one set pic — see the whole thing, plus other new pics, at the link. [SFX]

And here are some more set pics of the Doctor and Amy, looking extremely fresh-faced and bouncy. More at the link. [Blogtor Who]

So we haven't regaled you with a vague quote about David Tennant's final episodes in a while. Here's Russell T. Davies:

I feel by the time you see the last episodes, especially the great big finally, I think you will feel you've been through almost every emotion that's possible. Of course, that's not true. Of course, there's always something new to explore. If I stayed there a hundred years, I'd always have something new to say... I can promise you, you will be crying your eyes out. We actually sort of finished editing his last episode yesterday and I was so excited. I think it's a joy and I can't wait for you to see it.

You will feel every possible emotion! Even ones with fancy German names! [Starpulse]

Supernatural:

In the new season, Dean takes Castiel out on the town for a night out, to loosen the angel up. And wackiness ensues. I am so there. [E! Online]

Fringe:

Some details on the new season's episodes. Episode 1, "A New Day In The Old Town," is about a shapeshifter who continually molds his face, and it's directed by Akiva Goldsman from a script by Goldsman and J.J. Abrams. Episode 2, "Night Of Desirable Objects," is about a mole man living under the town, pulling people underground and eating them. [Fringe Television]

Smallville:

Chloe and Clark will have a strained relationship in season umpteen, although the duo will still work together. [E! Online]

Sanctuary:

Stargate Atlantis' Paul McGillion will join the cast of this Syfy show, playing a re-imagined version of "Wexford," the character he played in the original online show. He'll appear in the last couple episodes of season two, and possibly in season three if the show gets renewed. [Solutions Blog]

Green Lantern - First Flight:

Here are the first four minutes of the direct-to-DVD animated movie. [MTV via Comic Book Resources]

True Blood:

Next week, Sookie heads off to the Fellowship Of The Sun to find out what happened to Godric. Bill's quite worried about her safety, and Anna Paquin says Sookie's the type to save the day or "die trying." [E! Online]

Defying Gravity:

This "Grey's Anatomy in space" show also does have some surface similarities to Ron Moore's Virtuality. One character even gets almost blown out an airlock, and there's a sinister entity orchestrating events — the secret villain is called Beta, but it's probably not a virtual crazy guy. And this show is a bit more light-hearted. [E! Online]

In an interview with Publisher's Weekly about a month ago, Geoff Johns provided one of his clearest explanations for the mechanics of the various colors. Each of the seven represents a different aspect of the emotional spectrum, something that sentient life created simply by existing.

Green is the central color, a fulcrum point between the three negative emotions (the ROY half) on one side and the positive emotions (the BIV half) on the other. Its status as a pivot point is partially why, despite the colors representing an emotional spectrum, the stated quality of the Green Lantern Corps - willpower - isn't technically an emotion at all. Instead, it's the color of life itself, which balances out all the other colors. So, let's take a look at the various colors, and we might as well go in rainbow order.

Red: The color of rage, red is easily the most chaotic part of the emotional spectrum. The Red Lantern Corps was brought into being by Atrocitus, who in the recent "Secret Origins" retcon arc in Green Lantern was revealed as the killer of Abin Sur and the archenemy of then Green Lantern Sinestro. Billions of years old, Atrocitus was one of the five survivors of Sector 666, which was massacred by the Guardians' robotic servants the Manhunters due to a programming error. (It was this tragedy which led to their replacement by the Green Lantern Corps.) Upon induction to the Corps, Red Lanterns have their blood replaced by the rage energy of the Red Power Battery. This generally makes them creatures of pure instinct, and it has the added bonus of allowing Red Lanterns to shoot liquid rage out of their mouths as a projectile weapon.

Orange: The color of avarice, the orange light has only one wielder, the ageless thief Larfleeze. Though Hal Jordan compared his looks to the Muppet Gonzo (I guess I can see the resemblance), Larfleeze and the Orange Power Battery are really just the Gollum and One Ring of this War of Light. He jealously guards his precious treasure, living in complete isolation on the assumption that anyone he encounters is out to steal the orange light from him. The Guardians of the Universe negotiated a non-aggression pact with him eons ago, stating he would never unleash the orange light on the universe in exchange for the Guardians leaving him alone, which led to the longstanding prohibition on Green Lanterns entering the Vega System, where he resided. Recent events have seen this pact shatter, and Larfleeze (or, as he also calls himself, Agent Orange) has unleashed the terrible power of the orange light, which allows him to create deadly avatars of those he has slaughtered, allowing him to create entire Orange Lantern armies from his victims.

Yellow: The color of fear, yellow has been a major part of the Green Lantern mythos since a dying Abin Sur warned Hal Jordan of the yellow impurity in the very first Silver Age Green Lantern story. The role of yellow has evolved quite a bit since then, and it's a fairly long story (I tried my best to recap it all over here). Heading into Blackest Night, the Sinestro Corps is undergoing a leadership crisis, as the alien warlord Mongul has usurped Sinestro's rightful place as leader of the Corps (I mean, the thing is called the "Sinestro" Corps, after all). Having escaped his death sentence for the umpteenth time, Sinestro has a pretty long to-do list at the moment, which include reconnecting with his long lost daughter, challenging Hal Jordan to confront who he really is, further his absurdly complicated masterplan (whatever it is), and regaining control of the Sinestro Corps.

Green: The color of willpower, the role of green in all this is hopefully fairly obvious at this point. One thing that might be worth keeping in mind is the very fact that willpower isn't an emotion, as some critics have pointed out. The Guardians of the Universe very explicitly rejected emotions billions of years ago, and their recent actions have only driven them further down the path of senseless devotion to supposedly logical principles. Blackest Night will certainly deal with the legacy of the Guardians' rejection of emotion, and I suppose it's possible green may ultimately take on a more clearly emotional character as the new status quo slowly comes into focus.

Blue: The color of hope, the blue light is controlled by the now renegade Guardians Ganthet and Sayd, who abandoned their comrades to pursue a path in tune with their natural emotions (which included, among other things, their love for each other). The Blue Lanterns have no offensive capabilities of their own, but can instead allow Green Lanterns to experience vastly heightened power levels and instill in their comrades the hope needed to attain victory. The Blue Lantern Corps grows slowly, as Ganthet and Sayd devoted their time entirely to finding one being from Space Sector 1 worthy of the blue light, who in turn would then spend his time finding a suitable candidate from Space Sector 2, and so on. (Considering there are 3600 sectors, this could take a while.)

Indigo: The color of compassion, that's almost all that is known about those who wield (or, as the Ganthet puts it in Green Lantern #25, "weave") the indigo light. Like the color indigo itself, this corps has been the forgotten faction in Blackest Night's rainbow of warriors. All we really know is that they're not technically a corps so much as a tribe, and that the Indigo Tribe is led by a woman named, well, Indigo. I don't mean to sound glib here, but that's a whole lot of "indigo" right there. Anyway, they're also unknown to the DC universe at large, the image of them in Blackest Night #0 suggested tattoos and body paint are an important part of their appearance, and it's thought that the Blue Lanterns will need to form an alliance to them. The miniseries Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps, which unfolds over the next three weeks, has promised to reveal more.

Violet: The color of love, violet is controlled the Zamarons, the female counterparts to the (mostly) male Guardians. In past incarnations, the Zamarons had granted power to women through violet crystals that contained their psionic energies, turning whoever held the crystals into the superpowered Star Sapphire. The most notable Star Sapphire was Carol Ferris, Hal Jordan's one-time girlfriend and probable true love, who was possessed by the crystal on numerous occasions and forced to fight the Green Lantern. Geoff Johns has reconfigured the Zamarons and their violet power to better suit the notion of a corps along the lines of their Green Lantern and Sinestro counterparts, complete with its own energy entity along the lines of Ion and Parallax, which has been named the Predator. Thus the Star Sapphire Corps has now appeared, which thus far has been exclusively female. Carol Ferris has accepted a position in this new corps, as have several other women from throughout the galaxy who have lost their true love. The Zamarons are also recruiting from less reputable places, as they have begun using the emotional energy of the violet light to reform several female supervillains, including John Stewart's former nemesis Fatality, lone survivor of Xanshi, a planet Stewart allowed to be destroyed in a regrettable moment of arrogance.

Black: The color of death (assuming you consider black a color at all), the black light flows forth from the Black Lantern Power Battery, formed from the husk of the Anti-Monitor in the aftermath of Sinestro Corps War. The Guardian known as Scar, so-named for the injury she suffered at the hands of the Anti-Monitor during the conflict, has become enraptured by the black light, and is now a servant of Death. The Green Lantern villain Black Hand, previously best known for his device that could mimic the abilities of power rings, was retconned in the "Secret Origins" arc as a witness to the first battle between Atrocitus, Sinestro, and Hal Jordan. Atrocitus recognized in Black Hand, then simply mortuary assistant William Hand, a gateway to absolute blackness that existed within him. In Green Lantern #43, he finally made full contact with Death, killing his family and at last himself as the final part of his journey towards death. He arose as the first of the Black Lanterns, designated by Scar as the herald of the Blackest Night.

I may just be an eternal optimist (or, you know, a fool), but Blackest Night might just be the comic book event that actually delivers on all the hype. It's got what is fundamentally a compelling, straightforward premise (every dead superhero - scratch that, every dead character rises from the grave). The backdrop is suitably epic (a war between eight different Lantern Corps). The creative team has an encouraging track record (main writers Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi have been doing some of DC's best stuff in recent years, and the art is being handled by the likes of Ivan Reis and Ed Benes). And, if nothing else, Blackest Night is the conclusion of what has thus far been a very satisfying trilogy, with both Green Lantern: Rebirth and Sinestro Corps War standing as bright spots in DC's recent history.

All that said, it's probably not going to be the easiest event to pick up without any background knowledge. After all, this is the culmination of a story at least five years in the making, and there are at least two dozen plot lines already in motion before the series even begins. So here's our Blackest Night primer, which will attempt to cover all the basics as well as highlight a few of the more obscure details that might just prove crucial to the entire epic.

How did we get to this point?
You could trace the roots of Blackest Night to a whole lot of places. Obviously, there's Green Lantern: Rebirth and Sinestro Corps War, Geoff Johns's two previous epics that both laid important groundwork for what's going to play out over the next eight months. There's also "Tygers", Alan Moore's 1986 story from Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual #2, which prophesied much of what Geoff Johns brought to pass in Sinestro Corps War and has provided (with some minor revisions) one of Blackest Night's major antagonists. But, for my money, all of this really goes back to the death of Superman.

What are the different Lantern Corps, and what do they want?
Even if you've got a good handle on the admittedly complicated backstory to Blackest Night, that still leaves seven new Corps to keep track of. The colors themselves are actually fairly easy to remember, as they're the same as the colors of the rainbow. That's right - it's time to bust out the old ROY G BIV mnemonic, because it's pretty much the entire key to Blackest Night. Well, that and the black light of the Black Lantern Corps. That's probably important as well.

Who's coming back to life?
It would probably be easier to list which dead characters aren't coming back as Black Lanterns. If I had to guess, maybe Jor-El is safe, if only because Krypton's explosion probably didn't leave a body behind. Everybody else? They're all fair game. (And honestly, I'm not all that sure about Jor-El either.)

What roles are the various human Green Lanterns going to play?
Since the "mantle" of Green Lantern is actually a position in an intergalactic police force, it makes sense that there are so many active claimants to the title. With five human Green Lanterns currently operating (only the four Flashes come close to matching this), Blackest Night has the difficult job of giving all of them something to do. Fortunately, the preceding arcs in Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps (not to mention some peeks ahead at DC's solicitations for the next few months) provide a good sense of what we can expect for each Green Lantern.

With all that in mind, what books do I actually need to read?
DC Comics has gotten into a good habit in recent years in making its events fairly easy to follow, with one main book and a limited group of supporting titles. Final Crisis, for instance, was pretty much completely contained to books that actually carried the "Final Crisis" banner, and Blackest Night will be similar.

To be honest, it can all be summarized fairly simply - figure out which dead characters meant the most to each Lantern (particularly if they were named by Death in Green Lantern #43), and assume they'll be meeting those particular Black Lanterns very soon.

Hal Jordan will, of course, be the star of the show. The most recent Green Lantern arcs found Hal struggling with his own despair and hopelessness, and one can only hope he can find something worth fighting for (not to mention worth truly living for) in the pages of Blackest Night. Beyond his own emotional arc, there's his relationship with Carol Ferris, who is now a member of the newly formed Star Sapphire Corps. I'm guessing the two of them are going to find some time to talk things out, although it'll probably be in the midst of some massive interstellar battle.

There are a lot of potential Black Lanterns that would likely hit him close to home - his Justice League teammates Aquaman and Martian Manhunter are obvious examples - but I think two potential candidates really stand out in my mind as having particular meaning to Hal Jordan. More obviously, there's Abin Sur, his predecessor as Green Lantern, whose death is integral to Hal's origin story. Even more emotionally crushing would be his father Martin Jordan, a test pilot whose plane exploded in front of young Hal's eyes. Geoff Johns's run on Green Lantern, from Green Lantern: Rebirth to the "Secret Origins" arc, has taken great pains to define Hal as a person whose fearlessness and brashness are in reaction to the terror of witnessing the death of his father. I'm guessing Blackest Night will feature the payoff to all that setup.

(Oh, and I can almost guarantee they will find some way to get all eight rings onto Hal Jordan at the same time, if only because that cover from "Emerald Twilight" is so iconic.)

John Stewart has one really obvious deceased character in his past - his wife, the Green Lantern Katma Tui. Their reunion is pretty much a certainty, considering the Star Sapphire Yrra Cynril (formerly his nemesis Fatality) has already foretold their meeting. (It's also mentioned in one of DC's upcoming solicitations). Speaking of Yrra Cynril, there's also her entire planet of Xanshi, which John Stewart infamously allowed to be destroyed in the Cosmic Odyssey story back in the eighties. He's more at peace with his mistake than he has been in the past, but it's possible Blackest Night may give him an opportunity for some real closure, even if it involves an entire planet of Black Lanterns.

Kyle Rayner has dealt with a whole lot of death in his time, particularly during his tenure as the last Green Lantern in existence. He still grieves over the death of his mother, whose memory helped him through his imprisonment within the Parallax entity during Sinestro Corps War. His girlfriend Alexandra DeWitt was notoriously killed off and stuffed in a refrigerator, which became emblematic of the often shoddy treatment of female characters in comic books in general. (There's also his girlfriend Jade, but I think she's better dealt with when we get to another Green Lantern on this list.) In the here and now, there's his current lover Soranik Natu, the Green Lantern of Korugar and quite probably the long lost daughter of Sinestro. I'm guessing their fates will be intertwined as Blackest Night plays out.

Guy Gardner is probably the least touched by death of all the Green Lanterns. Admittedly, quite a few of his comrades from his time in Justice League International are not only dead but also mentioned in Green Lantern #43, including Ted Kord, Ralph and Sue Dibny, and Maxwell Lord. Even so, Guy has come a long way from his days as a violent idiot in the Keith Giffen Justice League (well, he's still kind of violent and idiotic, but he's more respected now), and I'm not entirely sure those characters would have even close to the same emotional impact of some of the others I've mentioned.

Instead, I suspect Guy Gardner's central interest in Blackest Night will be protecting his beloved Ice, who was recently resurrected and was named by Death as one of the heroes it wants back. For all their recent failures to make their relationship work, Guy Gardner cares about Ice probably more than just about anyone in the DC universe, and I'd be shocked if he doesn't do everything in his power to protect her.

Then there's Alan Scott, the Golden Age Green Lantern who isn't even part of the Corps at all. His roles in both Green Lantern: Rebirth and Sinestro Corps War weren't much more than glorified cameos, but there are a couple of reasons to think he will have more to do in Blackest Night. For one thing, the second batch of tie-in miniseries will include Blackest Night: JSA, and with all due respect to the rest of the Justice Society, you would have to think Alan Scott will take center stage there. Besides, while he didn't necessarily have the clearest stakes in the previous two stories, Alan Scott is arguably the Green Lantern most affected by the prospect of dead characters returning from the grave.

As a Golden Age character who was active in World War II, his chronological age is probably somewhere in the early nineties, even if various plot contortions have kept him considerably younger. As such, most of his would-be contemporaries are dead simply because of the march of time, meaning there are considerably more potential Black Lanterns in his past than the younger Green Lanterns. But above all, there's his daughter, Jenny-Lynn Hayden, better known as Jade. During the recent "Thy Kingdom Come" arc in Justice Society of America (written, incidentally, by Geoff Johns), Alan Scott openly wondered whether the godlike being Gog could bring his daughter back to life. Of all the Black Lanterns I hope ultimately receive a proper resurrection, I'm probably hoping for Jade more than anyone else.