The worst space operas are not just campy or silly. They're idiotic and braindead. They're so intent on cramming the cliches of Westerns or adventure serials into an outer-space setting that they not only leave behind even the most basic space science, they actually strip the danger and excitement out of space travel itself. They're usually derivative of better works, and have little undigested chunks of pilfered greatness floating around... like a debris field.

So here are the dumbest space operas of all time, according to us:

Battlestar Galactica (original series.) Sorry. Ron Moore pretty much summed it up when he explained why this version of BSG had so much wasted potential: You have the destruction of an entire civilization in the first episode, and then in the second episode they go to the casino planet and par-tay. Plus the dorky helmets. And the daggit. And Boxey. To be fair, though, this wasn't the dumbest space opera Glen Larson gave us. That honor must go to...

Buck Rogers In The 25th Century. Oh man. We rushed out and bought this on DVD as soon as it came out. And it is just unbelievably atrocious. Like the original BSG, it features a post-apocalyptic setting... which is forgotten right after the first episode. There's Twiki the penis-headed robot, who goes around getting into one hilarious scrap after another, and Princess Ardala, who's always trying to collar the tight-pantsed Buck so he will be her husband/boy-bitch. But mostly, this show is known for its amazing disco set pieces, including this bizarre rock band, Andromeda:

Guardians Of The Galaxy (the original comics). Marvel Comics' answer (sort of) to the Legion of Superheroes, Guardians Of The Galaxy charted the adventures of Vance Astro, who spent 1000 years in suspended animation before arriving at Alpha Centauri and realizing that humans had long since discovered faster-than-light travel. In the mean time, Earth has been invaded, first by Martians and then by the cruel Badoon. So Astro gathers a team of interplanetary misfits to free the Earth. In a typical later storyline, they find Wolverine's metal skeleton still intact (even though Wolverine is long dead) and Wolverine's great-great-granddaughter fights Doctor Doom for it. But Doctor Doom can control the metal skeleton with his mind. Snikkt!

Starslayer. I'm tempted just to say "look at the cover." But if you want more info, here goes. He's a Celtic barbarian, who's about to die in the distant past, but then his wife's descendant, in the distant future, summons him forward in time. Where he frees Earth from some alien invaders, reignites our sun, becomes a space pirate, and then dedicates a black hole to a Celtic goddess. Or something. Oh, just look at the picture.

Warlock. Another weird comic book hero. He's artificially created, his face is so radiant that only blind sculptor Alicia Masters can sculpt it into a human likeness. He gets hold of the Soul Gem, which sounds like the name of a mid-1970s R&B band, and goes around the universe fighting Thanos.

Space: 1999. Okay, I'm fully prepared for some pushback on this one. But even though I love this show, think about it for five seconds. The Moon is blasted away from the Earth at such high speeds that it visits a different planet every week. And somehow this doesn't kill everyone on the Moon, because of their protective Moonbase. Okay. Even though the Moon is hurtling through space at speeds much faster than the speed of light. Also, just how many Eagles do they have? And every planet is like a sillly horror movie or a crazy mind-trip. And then there was the crazy-browed shapeshifter.

The legion of Star Wars ripoffs. Not surprisingly, in the wake of Star Wars' success, a huge wave of incredibly vapid Wars knock-offs flooded theaters, from all over the world. (And we've presented many of them in our regular "found footage" feature.) There were the Italian Star Wars knockoffs, like The Humanoid, Star Odyssey, War Of The Robots and many others. You had your Japanese knock-offs, like Message From Space. There were animated Star Wars fakes, like Starchaser: The Legend Of Orin. And don't forget Galaxina. And of course, Turkish Star Wars. These knockoffs all have one thing in common: they borrow from the trappings of Star Wars, and completely skip over what made the original movie great. It's like a generation of B-movie directors watched only the Star Wars Holiday Special, snorted a mountain of cocaine and crushed Dilaudid, and then fired up the cameras!

Here's the whole thing of War Of The Robots in just ten minutes:

Cosmos: War Of The Planets. This Italian space opera, which came out around the same time as Star Wars, is just sort of brain-dead, with very little direction or originality. Our heroes drift through set-pieces ripped off from 2001 and Barbarella, before coming to a planet ruled by an evil computer. Which they overthrow, of course. It's all thanks to the positive power of red headgear with funny ear-circles. The whole movie is public domain and you can watch the whole thing (if you really want to) online.

Battle Beyond The Stars. It's Roger Corman's space opera, which is really all you need to know. Oh, there's an evil overlord, Sador, and he's going to destory a planet unless they submit to him utterly. And only one plucky young hero (and eventually, his girlfriend) dare to stand up to Sador, stealing an old spaceship and going off to hire some mercenaries to help. Actually, all you really need to know is that there's a spaceship-shooting babe with a ridiculous boob window:

Event Horizon. They travel to the aid of a long-lost spaceship, which turns out to have punched a hole into a universe of pure oatmeal... sorry, I meant pure chaos and pure evil. Not oatmeal, because a universe of pure oatmeal would make no sense whatsoever. Unlike a universe of pure evil, which makes perfect sense. Anyway, it makes them have wacky head trips. Mmmm... Oatmeal...

Supernova: I have to admit, any movie that features James Spader traveling through space naked can't be all bad... but the rest of it? Ugh. There's an alien artifact and a giant star that's about to (you guessed it) go supernova... and everything is messed up, until Spader gets naked again. Why can't he just always be naked?

Solaris (remake). We loved the original Tarkovsky film, but the Soderbergh remake? Just sort of navel-gazey and pointless, with just a few too many trippy moments for trippiness' sake. George Clooney explains it best in this video: "Uh, all sorts of strange things start happening."

Captain Eager. A recent direct-to-DVD British movie about an old space hero who comes out of retirement to save the day one more time, this film sort of rides the line between pastiche, homage and copy, trying to channel Dan Dare and falling a bit flat in the process. Although Tamsin Grieg is great, as always. And we love Scamp the Rocket Dog. Here's the trailer:

I say "at least," because there're actually a few books worth checking out this week. Dark Horse leads the way with Star Wars Adventures: Han Solo and the Hollow Moon of Khorya, the first in a new series of "graphic novellas" about George Lucas' favorite charming smuggler. You can read a preview here, but I have to admit that I was pretty much sold once I found out it was a pre-A New Hope Han story. What can I say? I'm a sucker for rogues.

Similarly charming - and arguably a little dumber - are the Winchester boys who star in DC's Supernatural: Rising Son, a collection of the recent mini-series of the same name that gives you some backstory to our favorite television demon hunters. Also on the television front, Boom! Studios have the first issue of a new Eureka series, Dormant Gene coming out as well, which should tide us over nicely until the new season starts on SyFy in a couple of months.

If superhero thrills are your thing, then DC has an oversized hardcover edition of Superman: For Tomorrow, the not-what-you'd-expect story by 100 Bullets' Brian Azzarello and Batman/X-Men/Wildcats wunderkind Jim Lee. There's also a much more affordable Green Lantern Chronicles collection of Hal Jordan's earliest appearances.

Marvel, meanwhile, has the obligatory X-Men Origins: Wolverine tie-in before Friday's movie, and the still-surprising Guardians Of The Galaxy: Earth Shall Overcomehardcover that collects the first appearances of Marvel's obscure 1970s future space heroes from various titles like Marvel Two-In-One and The Defenders.

But if you're really jonesing for some alien invasion drama, you can't go wrong with Oni Press' Resurrection, Vol. 1, the first collection of a series by Marc Guggenheim, the Eli Stone creator (and Amazing Spider-Man writer... oh, and the guy who co-wrote the upcoming Green Lantern movie.) Resurrection is all about what happens to Earth after the aliens leave. If Y The Last Man or Lost is your kind of thing, then you'll want to pick this one up, and Oni's making it easier for you by offering this 184 page book for just $6, ahead of Saturday's Free Comic Book Day prologue for the next series (starting in June). Need more to convince you? Oh, alright; here are the first 26 pages to tease and tantalize, but personally I think it's the book of the week.

Even if you're willing to pass up great bargains, you can check out the complete shipping list of what's making it to stores this week to look at what else will be making it to your local comic book store this week, and start setting up your sleeping bag in advance of Saturday's avalanche of free comics, just in case. But, really, come on: $6.00 is a great price for 184 pages.

Abnett and Lanning - who also write Nova for Marvel, where telepathic dog Cosmo first appeared - talked to CBR about what to expect from the new series:

We both loved (and grew up on) Jim Starlin's cosmic Marvel stories in the'70s... This is our homage to, our tribute to, and our advancement of those themes, characters and ideas. This is the job we got into comics to do.

Yes, 'Guardians' will push all those superhero buttons that we all love — troubled heroes, sinister challenges, emotional intrigue and jaw-dropping cliff-hangers— but it's also a sci-fi book packed with amazing worlds, mind-blowing technology, wild life forms and intense space warfare. And like all good sci-fi storytellers, the creators will comment on humanity with visuals and metaphors that will hopefully be thought provoking and maybe even controversial. And, who am I kidding, if you just want to see bad-ass fighters, hot femme fatales, a high-tech HQ in a decapitated Celestial head, a telepathic Russian cosmonaut dog, and a smart-mouth raccoon with a penchant for heavy armaments, we'll have all that too.

DNA + Pelletier + Rosemann on "Guardians Of The Galaxy" [Comic Book Resources]