Let's quickly get the superhero stuff out of the way, shall we? DC is launching a new Azrael series, mixing Batman and The DaVinci Code for a new religious hero to light Gotham's streets. Or something.

DC is also putting out a hardcover collection of the much-delayed, but much-awesome Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds series, that redefined the Legion of Super-Heroes franchise at least until the next reboot.

Marvel sees that collection and raises Captain America: Road to Reborn, another hardcover collection, this time of the Cap issues leading up to Steve Rogers' return. Marvel also offers Dark Wolverine Vol. 1: The Prince, a collection of the first solo stories starring Wolverine's bastard (in many senses of the word) son, and the special issue Dark Reign: The List - Hulk, in which gamma irradiated monsters come face to face with Marvel's current New World Order (I predict smashing).

Keeping outside of monsters for the time being, Nexus: Space Opera and Star Trek: Mission's End offer your fill of interstellar drama for the week, with the former bringing back the cult space cop superhero from its 1980s indie comic heyday and the latter offering a take on the final days of James Kirk's original five-year mission. Sticking with movies, the first issue of GI Joe Movie: Snake Eyes lets Ray Park, the movie's own silent ninja, co-write a story about his own character.

But none of those, as fine as they are - and Nexus and Star Trek are both particularly fine - hold a candle to Image Comics' reissue of Five Fists of Science, Matt Fraction and Steven Saunders' alternate-history tale of Twain and Tesla teaming up to save the world from forces more ancient and deadly than many could imagine. If ever there was a book I could eagerly recommend to the majority of io9 readers, it'd be this one. Go forth and buy.

Oh, but not yet. We've still got the Hallowe'enish books to go! You know about Angel Vs. Frankenstein after yesterday's preview, but IDW also has Frankenstein's Mobster, a pun-laden, funny gangster romp recasting of Mary Shelley's misunderstood monster, and Spike Omnibus, a collection of stories about Joss Whedon's other vampire with a soul, for horror fans this week.

Marvel, meanwhile, has the first issue of The Stand: Soul Survivors, a new series adapting part of the Stephen King novel, and DC are putting out their annual DC Universe Hallowe'en Special filled with spooky shorts starring superhero favorites. 'Tis the season, after all.

Whether you're looking for things going bump in the night, or giant steampunk inventions designed to scare the world into peace, you'll be able to find it on this week's shipping list from Diamond Distributors, and then inside your local comic store. But, seriously: At least leaf through Five Fists Of Science. You'll thank me afterwards.

The Mole Man
The Fantastic Four's first villain, the Mole Man's modus operandi switched up from attacking humanity because they weren't monsters to one of ecological conservation, trying to get humanity to leave Monster Island alone and stop bringing the monsters therein to the brink to extinction. Who can't get behind that? He's like a shorter, uglier Al Gore who just happens to command an army of near-unstoppable genetic accidents. If we just let him win, who knows what kind of era of ecological paradise we could be letting ourselves in for?

Zoom
The second Reverse-Flash, Hunter Zolomon was a former police criminal psychologist who became unstuck in time and mind after an accident involving the Flash's Cosmic Treadmill. Obsessed with making heroes "better" by forcing personal tragedies on them so that they'll try harder, he's the poster boy for tough love... But he really is trying to make the world a better place, albeit in a twisted manner. Instead of beating him up for that, why not try and just convince him to soften his methods and let him run free? What's the worst that could happen? Well, besides him trying to kill your family as motivation, of course.

Lex Luthor
For years, Lex has been telling us that, if Superman would just get out of the way, he's turn the world into a beautiful utopia, curing diseases and ending all problems with science. Hell, he's even managed to cure cancer before, even if it was just a ploy to lure Superman into a false sense of security. All I'm saying is this: Would Superman really mind that much if we just asked him to step aside for a bit and let Lex run things his way? If nothing else, the recent Superman/Batman: Public Enemies movie suggested that he could sort out this whole financial disaster thing within weeks...

Magneto
All he wants to do is end genetic persecution! Is that really so wrong? Sure, you can argue with his ways of going about it - I don't think anyone here would be fully supportive of his controversial "enslave and destroy the human race" agenda - but the man's lived through Nazi concentration camps, been acquitted by an international court of evildoing and, if nothing else, is fully dedicated to his beliefs. Is there really any proof that a world controlled by Magneto wouldn't be one less filled with hate? We don't think so... even if it's because most of us would be dead.

Doctor Doom
Those unconvinced of Victor Von Doom's leadership potential need only look to his kingdom of Latveria for the proof: Crime is nearly non-existent! Illness equally so! And the people love their leader (Admittedly, because to admit otherwise may result in death, but still: Details, people). Sure, evidence also points to our having to put up with a merciless police force of Doombots and having to dress and act like Eastern European villagers from the late 19th century, but aren't those prices we're willing to pay for a reduction in crime and illness? Admit it: Maybe we could all benefit from being ruled by an iron (clad) hand or two.

Darkseid
Last year's Final Crisis showed a world under self-styled Ultimate God of Evil Darkseid's will-sapping regime, and aside from the complete absence of free will and slow devolution of the planet into a red-skied radioactive wasteland patrolled by mutated dogs and men with tiger heads, we can't help but notice that those submitting to the Anti-Life Equation seemed much less in emotional turmoil or upset about the direction that their lives had taken - In fact, they seemed confident and assured, unlike those who'd chosen to resist. And, yes; those who resisted eventually assisted in the recreation of existence itself, but still. Isn't having even will-sapped piece of mind about your place in the world worth some sacrifice?

Universo
Here's one we know works from experience. Futuristic hypnotist Universo managed to hoodwink the entire planet under his command in the 1987 Legion of Super-Heroes storyline "The Universo Project," and the result was a peaceful planet where superheroes weren't needed at all. Easily the best case scenario we've seen, it didn't even involve Darkseid-esque worldwide mind control - Only figures of authority (and some superheroes) were hypnotized, meaning that the common man and woman would happily have freedom to toil and work for The Man as usual, without knowing that it was a different The Man all along. Win win!

The Beginning
Superman: Birthright
The second most recent retelling of Superman's origins (The most recent, Superman: Secret Origin, just started last month), Mark Waid and Francis Lenil Yu's 2003 twelve-part revamp updated the Man of Steel for the 21st Century, bringing back many concepts and ideas lost from the comics since the mid-80s (Amongst them, Lex Luthor as childhood friend - Something that Smallville had brought back into the public consciousness) and giving us a more pro-active and easier to relate to Kal-El. Overlooked on its original release, and quickly removed from continuity by 2005's Infinite Crisis, this is still one of the best versions of the character's earliest days.

The Ending(s)
Superman: Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow
The classic "End of Superman" story, Alan Moore and Curt Swan's farewell to the character revisits characters from his past in a way that's part celebration and part "What were they thinking?" The recently-released "deluxe hardcover" edition also contains Moore's other classic Superman story, "For The Man Who Has Everything."

JLA: DC One Million
Technically not a Superman story, but anyone who's read Grant Morrison's tale of the return of "Superman Prime" in the 853rd Century - and the multi-time-period, part-intergalactic-assassination-attempt, part-genocide-attempt it spawns - knows that Clark Kent could've asked for no greater 60th birthday present, especially with the happy ending Morrison provides at the end.

The Future
Superman And The Legion Of Super-Heroes
As well as rebooting the Superman spin-off Legion of Super-Heroes, Geoff Johns and Gary Frank's 2008 storyline also looks at the legacy of the character, jumping ahead 1000 years to a world where Superman's mythology has been twisted into something more bigoted and exclusive, all as an excuse to show what Superman really stands for. You'll cheer when the tables turn towards the end.

The What Ifs
Superman: Red Son
What if the all-American hero landed in Russia? Mark Millar, Dave Johnson and Killian Plunkett's 2003 series takes the alternate history route all the way to the far future, and brings in Batman, Wonder Woman, JFK and Stalin for the ride.

Superman: Secret Identity
A more real-world take on the Superman idea, Kurt Busiek and Stuart Immonen's touching 2004 story takes the ideas behind the character for a metatextual, science fiction spin, showing a Clark Kent who lives in "the real world," but develops super powers nonetheless.

The Time Capsules
The Superman Chronicles Vol. 1
The earliest appearances of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's hero, reprinted in the order in which they appeared, it's a wonderful (and relatively cheap) look back at the origins of one of the 20th century's most iconic creations.

Showcase Presents: Superman Family Vol. 2
Mid-50s insanity collecting issues of the spin-off series Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen and Superman's Girlfriend, Lois Lane, showing the weird and wonderful science fiction fables that the character had started to populate after his first flush of success.

Superman: The Death And Return Of Superman Omnibus
Not just the highlight of Superman's 1990s, but one of the sales highlights of comics of the decade in general, the story of Superman's "death" and subsequent return may not be the most compelling story the character has ever appeared in - and may fall apart once he has to come back - but it's definitely one of the most read.

The Ones To Own If You Can Only Own One (Okay, Two)
All-Star Superman Vols. 1 & 2
Starting with a one-page recap of the character's roots and speeding (like a bullet, in fact) through a series of challenges and stories highlighting what the character means to his friends, family and even his fans, Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly's two-volume meditation on Superman is exciting, surprisingly gentle and filled with affection, and possibly the greatest Superman series published to date. Everything you need to know about Superman is in here, and maybe a little more, too.

Kid Flash 1
What Seems To Be The Problem? After gaining his powers in a recreation of the same accident that gave Barry Allen his, Wally West went through something his mentor hadn't - super-powered puberty. The same changes that made Wally a man also made the superspeed chemicals toxic, which meant that each time he used his powers, he took another step closer to death.
Is Death Guaranteed? Nope. In what can only be described as "lazy plotting," Wally was zapped by a villain's energy blast that managed to cure him of this ailment, a fact he celebrated by taking on the role of the Flash after Barry Allen's apparent death.

Impulse/Kid Flash 2
What Seems To Be The Problem? Even if puberty doesn't kill you, being a super-speedster comes with other deadly problems if Bart Allen is anything to go by: He's suffered from a hyper-metabolism that ages him much faster than he should on two separate occasions, now.
Is Death Guaranteed? Only kind of. After the problem was apparently solved the first time by forcing Bart to overload his own metabolism by running really fast (No, I'm not really sure how that works, either), it came back to haunt him in later life, and he died from it - except that his younger self was somehow stolen away into the future and brought back to life. I'm not sure how that worked, either, but at least it undid the character's unfortunate (and somewhat sensationalistic) death.

Spawn
What Seems To Be The Problem? Al Simmons was a murdered soldier who returned to Earth as a Hellspawn, with seemingly unlimited magical powers. Problem is, those powers are limited depending on the lifeforce of the symbiote he's become attached to on the process - Using his powers too often could result in its death... and his.
Is Death Guaranteed? Not in the slightest. As the series continued, creator Todd McFarlane and others came up with numerous workarounds, including new power sources, and various metamorphoses for the symbiote instead of deaths. As long as McFarlane can continue to make money from Spawn, expect death to be avoided.

Warlock/Doug Ramsey
What Seems To Be The Problem? It's the ultimate buddy movie waiting to happen: He's a techno-organic entity who requires other beings' lifeforce to survive! He's a nerd with a mutant gift for languages who'll happily give up his lifeforce to be part of the New Mutants! Talk about an enabling relationship.
Is Death Guaranteed? For Doug? Yes, although it wasn't Warlock's fault - He jumped in front of a bullet meant for fellow New Mutant Wolfsbane. Warlock lives on (and for awhile, even thought he was a re-animated Doug), helping to defeat alien invasions in Marvel Comics' Annihilation: Conquest and is due to return to the revived New Mutants series soon, as is Doug... as a zombie.

Kid Psycho
What Seems To Be The Problem? The wonderfully-named Legion of Super-Heroes wannabe Kid Psycho can use his advanced will power to move objects with his mind, and even travel through time thanks to the entirely unexplained telekinetic power of mind-time-travel (No, we really don't know about that either). The only problem is that, with each use of his magnificent mind, he takes one year off his life.
Is Death Guaranteed? Sadly, yes; he sacrificed himself during DC Comics' 1985 Crisis On Infinite Earths. The 31st Century is a lesser place for his loss.

The return of Connor Kent, AKA Superboy, in this week's fourth issue of Legion came as a double surprise to many people; not only has the character been dead since 2006's Infinite Crisis, but he's rarely been mentioned as Superboy since, due - most assumed - to an ongoing lawsuit with the heirs of Jerry Siegel over the ownership of the name. Does Connor's return, to life and as Superboy, mean that DC have settled the case? Not exactly, explains Newsarama's Jeff Trexler:

The comprehensive nature of the 2006 ruling–that "any comic strip material of the nature now and heretofore sold under the title SUPERBOY" belonged exclusively to the Siegel heirs–arguably prohibited DC from publishing any material that featured a character named Superboy, whether a young Clark Kent or a derivative work featuring a character with the same name and similar powers... However, in July 2007, after the Superboy case had been transferred to a different judge, the court granted DC's motion to reconsider the 2006 ruling... Even better for DC, the 2007 order went on to indicate that DC owns at least 50% of the Superboy copyright. Because the original material in question was drawn by Joe Shuster–whose rights at this point remain vested in DC–Superboy would arguably be a joint work co-owned by DC and the Siegel heirs.

As a co-owned property, DC would have the legal right to publish new Superboy material without permission from the Siegels... which would explain not only Connor's return this week, but also the news that he will go on to star in DC's upcoming Adventure Comics revival, written by Geoff Johns:

The series will feature one of my favorite characters to write and a mainstay of my run on TEEN TITANS - SUPERBOY... But that's not all. It can't be, right? I mean, it's called ADVENTURE COMICS. It's not called SUPERBOY. That's because the series won't just be featuring Superboy, it'll be co-featuring the Legion of Super-Heroes fresh from the Crisis of the 31st Century in LEGION OF THREE WORLDS. More on the details of the book, and Superboy and the Legion, will be coming out in the following weeks, but I think it's safe to reveal that STARMAN will be the Legionnaire taking front and center stage with our first issue.

Adventure Comics #1 will be released in August; the Superboy lawsuit is ongoing.

Explaining A Mysterious Return [Newsarama.com]

But first, a couple quick notes. There are obviously way more examples of alien writing systems out there, but these are all ones that have been "deciphered" such that we can actually write in them. There are some major alien languages that remain mysterious, including the Gallifreyan omegabet, which allegedly has millions of characters. I've provided links to fonts based on these alphabets; if you don't know how to install fonts on your computer, here is a handy guide. With that out of the way, and following a brief but very honorable mention to J.R.R. Tolkien's Tengwar script from Lord of the Rings, let's get started on some alien alphabets...

1-2. Alienese I and II, Futurama

As part of their truly gargantuan effort to make the 31st century a fully realized universe, series creators Matt Groening and David X. Cohen (well, mainly David X. Cohen) created Alienese, an alien alphabet that was primarily used to write humorous graffiti in the background of scenes. The alphabet has precisely the same twenty-six letters and base ten number system as English , and the writers didn't create an Alienese language to go along with the alphabet, so everything it said was in English (the main point of Alienese was to do in-jokes, after all). All of this allowed Futurama fans to decipher the alphabet within about thirty minutes of the show's premiere, forcing the writing staff to come up with a more fiendish challenge, which became Alienese II.

Instead of the simple letter substitution of the first alphabet, this second alphabet uses a modular addition system, where the symbol to represent a given character changes based on the letter before it. Here's how it would work in English: say you want to write "Fry." First assign each letter of the alphabet the numerical value that is one less than their position in it, so A = 0 and Z = 25 (the reasons you have to do this are too complicated and boring to go into). You first choose the fifth letter, which of course is "F." For "R", the seventeenth letter, you combine the values of "F" and "R", which is 5 + 17 = 22, which means you use "W." With "Y", you add 24 to 22, which gives you 46. Since there are only 26 letters, you subtract 46 - 26 = 20, and so the final letter is "U". Thus "Fry" is spelled the equivalent of "Fwu" in Alienese II. Oh, and don't worry - none of the rest of these alphabets are even remotely this complicated.

You can download the fonts here (although you'll have to do your own addition with Alienese II). You can also instantly convert between English and either language here. If you're still a bit confused about modular addition, you can check out a more detailed primer here.

3. Ancient, Stargate

After the insanity of Alienese II, here's a nice straightforward alphabet used by the Ancients on Stargate. It's a fairly close phonetic match for the English alphabet, although "f" and "u" are represented by the same character, so there are only 25 letters total. Supposedly, the letters can take on new meanings when written upside-down. As far as numbers go, the Ancients actually used a Base 8 system, but they invented two additional numerals so that they could more easily deal with races that used a decimal system. There are no symbols for punctuation in the Ancient alphabet. The makers of Stargate were somewhat inconsistent in how they used the alphabet, occasionally writing context-appropriate messages in English, but more often simply using the language for in-jokes.

Download the alphabet here. And, because I'm trying to encourage this sort of thing, here is a link to the Gospel of Matthew transliterated into the Ancient alphabet.

4. Ath, Crest of the Stars by Morioka Hiroyuki

This Japanese science fiction trilogy, along with its sequel Banner of the Stars, dealt with the Abh, an interstellar but strongly feudal race that was originally bioengineered by a highly nationalist faction in far future Japan. They speak Baronh, a language based on ancient Japanese. Created as slaves, the Abh at first had no written language, but upon gaining their freedom created Ath, a relatively independent alphabet that nevertheless had some basis in Japanese kana scripts.

You can get the font here.

5. Interlac, DC Comics

In the 30th century era of the Legion of Superheroes, Interlac is the common constructed language of the United Planets. Considering the hugely diverse backgrounds of the Legion and their penchant for fighting evil on faraway alien planets, a lingua franca like Interlac is a very real necessity. Although the language was first used in a 1969 issue of Adventure Comics, it wasn't until 1984 that Paul Levitz and Keith Giffen standardized the alphabet into the consistent set that it is today. Recently, the titles of the five JLA and JSA books that made up the Lightning Saga were written in Interlac. And, in a sign of great cosmic respect, the Guardians use Interlac to write the Book of Oa.

Download the font here.

6-8. The Klingon Alphabets, Star Trek

Klingon is probably the most famous science fiction language. Developed by linguist Marc Okrand for the Star Trek movies, Klingon is officially written using our alphabet. However, Klingon ships often have markings on them that clearly look like letters, which has led Klingon enthusiasts to search for a proper Klingon alphabet. This came when an unidentified figure from Paramount used the letters seen on the show to make an alphabet, which he or she then sent to the Klingon Language Institute. This alphabet, known as pIqaD, does not have a set correspondence between its letters and the English alphabet equivalents. The Institute has proposed the mapping seen above, but official sources say this is incorrect.

A more official, albeit more bizarre, Klingon alphabet was originally developed by the Astra Image Corporation for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. These were also later used for the Skybox trading cards made for The Next Generation. Although there are still 26 phonetic values, just like in English, there are now only ten letters, meaning various characters double, triple, and sometimes quadruple up in possible meanings. This of course means that many words, some with directly opposite meanings, will look identical. Nevertheless, this alphabet is the one most often used by Star Trek production teams when adding Klingon lettering.

Finally, there is the so-called Klinzhai script, which comes from The U.S.S. Enterprise Officer's Manual, published in 1980. Based on concept art and other fragments seen in The Original Series, the alphabet has the major disadvantage of being formalized before Marc Okrand constructed the Klingon language, making it difficult to correlate with what is now "known" about the sounds of the Klingon language.

Get the first pIqaD here along with several other Star Trek alphabets of varying degrees of officialness. Unfortunately, I can't find a font for the second pIqaD. You can download Klinzhai here. And, for the Star Trek fan who has everything except a Klingon keyboard, here is a Klingon keyboard.

9. Kryptonese, DC Comics

Kryptonese automatically gets points because it's the only writing system on this list that's a syllabary, not an alphabet. It grew out of several fan letters that attempted to rationalize the various squiggles used in the fifties and sixties to represent the language of Superman's destroyed home planet Krypton. Exasperated by the barrage of letters, DC editor E. Nelson Bridwell tried to end the unsolicited alphabets by explaining in one issue that Kryptonese actually had 118 letters. In a development that should stand as a lasting tribute to linguistic geekiness, Bridwell immediately started receiving proposals for 118-character Kryptonese alphabets. Bridwell, himself a lover of trivial minutiae, decided if the job was to be done, he really should be the one to do it, and set about combing through old comics to find 118 unique squiggles that he could designate as the various sounds of Kryptonese. Although this exercise was, of course, completely arbitrary, the end result was the massive syllabary you see above.

Unfortunately, there are currently no fonts available online for Kryptonese, partially because its non-alphabetical nature would make it difficult for most keyboards. But here is a great site covering its history and mechanics.

10. Kryptonian, DC Comics

One of the many things removed from continuity by Johnny Bryne's Man of Steel reboot was Kryptonese. In its place came Kryptonian, which was a 26 letter alphabet that simply corresponded with the English alphabet. This new alphabet was introduced in 2000, and ever since any Kryptonian you might see in comics (the current World of New Krypton arc has a bunch of examples) are English phrases transliterated into Kryptonian. This also allowed the comics to finish the task of justifying why there's a big "S" on Superman's costume, as the Kryptonian "S" sort of looks like the Man of Tomorrow's symbol. (It's also a symbol of hope on Krypton.) And to think I had simply assumed the "S" just stood for Superman.

Get the font here. You can also go here to check out a truly wondrous attempt to go beyond a simple letter substitution scheme and create a complete, linguistically consistent Kryptonian, complete with nine vowels and twenty-four consonants.

11. Mandalorian, Star Wars

The Mandalorians are best known as the warrior culture that trained Jango Fett and provided the inspiration for both the Fett family's armor and that of the Clone Troopers. In the Expanded Universe books, the Mandalorians have been developed as a fearsome third faction in the war between Jedi and Sith, sometimes following the Sith, but more often content to auction off their deadly services to the highest bidder. Karen Traviss, author of the Star Wars: Republic Commando series, is currently working on developing the Mandalorian language, Mando'a, into a fully functional language. The alphabet you see above comes from the Visual Dictionary companion to Attack of the Clones.

You can download it here.

12. Marain, The Culture books by Iain M. Banks

Banks's series considers the Culture, a utopian society where various alien societies have been brought together in relative harmony under the benign governance of the Minds, a set of highly sophisticated AI. The Minds considered language a vital part of ensuring peace between species, and so they created Marain, a new language with no clear connections to any previously extant tongue. For the Marain alphabet, the Minds used binary as an inspiration, using a 3x3 grid of nine circles, with each circle either blackened or left blank. Lines were then drawn between the dots to construct the symbol, as can be seen in the chart above. Although there could theoretically be as many as 512 unique characters in the Marain alphabet, these 32 symbols in particular were chosen because then can be rotated and flipped without looking like any of the others, making all of them completely unique and distinguishable.

Download the font here under the entry for December 21. For a more comprehensive explanation from Banks as to how the Marain writing system works, go here.

13. Zentradi, The Super Dimension Fortress Macross

This anime series from the early eighties concerned first contact between humans and the Zentradi, giant humanoids created eons ago by a mysterious protoculture to serve as their galactic warriors. The series's creators, Studio Nue, constructed a Zentradi alphabet for the TV series, which they then supplemented with a full-fledged Zentradi language for the followup movie.

You can get the font here.

The website Comic Book Religion has a great list of Jewish superheroes, from which I'm shamelessly culling this list.

The Thing is surely the greatest Jewish superhero of them all - there's not even really any doubt about it. Benjamin J. Grimm, hero of Yancy Street, got bombarded with cosmic rays and became super strong, super-tough, and rocky. But he never forgot his Jewish roots, and in Dan Slott's short-lived series, he actually goes and gets bar-mitzvahed. And then has a raucous poker game.

Colossal Boy is one of the coolest members of the Legion of Super Heroes. Writer Paul Levitz was reviewing notes on the Legion, when he realized Colossal Boy's real name, Gim Allon, was similar to Israeli leader Yigal Allon. So in 1983, when Gim married an alien shape-shifter, Yera, he wondered aloud if he could convince the aliens to let him raise their kids Jewish.

Moon Knight. Okay, sure, Marc Spector ended up becoming an adherent of the Egyptian god Khonshu, who gave him his superpowers, but he was raised Jewish. His dad was a rabbi. Editor Joe Quesada identified Moon Knight as an important Jewish superhero in his column.

Kitty Pryde, one of the coolest X-Men, is also Jewish, according to Quesada. She shows this with her "everpresent Star of David."

Atom Smasher, aka Nuklon, is also Jewish. In one issue of Infinity Inc., the Justice League member reminisces back to his Bar Mitzvah as part of remembering how he became a superhero. And then in one recent comic, Albert Rothstein gets a Christmas kiss from Supergirl:

American Flagg, aka Reuben Flagg, is also a great Jewish hero of the people, taking out all the scumbags who threaten the stability of a future dystopian America.

Magneto isn't exactly a superhero, but he is a morally gray member of the superhero world, who sometimes fights on our heroes' side. And there's a whole FAQ listing all the evidence that Magneto was in Auschwitz because of his Jewish roots, rather than some other reason.

There's lots more at the link above, including Captain Underpants, and the unlikely hero The Acidic Jew. M'chlaim!

Whether it's DC Comics relaunching the Legion of Super-Heroes with a reprint of their first adventure in Adventure Comics #0, or launching a brand new superhero series with The Mighty #1, it's as if everyone is making an effort in this last new release day before this weekend's New York Comic Con.

Devil's Due's first issue of French WW2 supernatural thriller I Am Legion, Dynamite's debut of equally-supernatural western Dead Irons, IDW's collection of Mirror Universe stories in Star Trek: Mirror Images and Image's domestic superhero Jersey Gods all make their debuts this week, and Boom! have their very enjoyable Eureka spin-off appearing for the first time, as well (we have a preview of that later today, for those yet to be convinced about how it'll work as a comic).

However, it's definitely Marvel Comics who're going all out this week. In addition to the first issues of new anthology title Astonishing Tales, rebooted African royalty superhero series Black Panther, undercover hero series Secret Warriors and (our favorite) superhero spy (well, kind of) book Agents of Atlas — along with a new hardcover collection for the rightly-lauded Captain America: Truth series — the House of Ideas has the debut of Marvel: Your Universe, a new anthology series collecting recent issues of hit series for the surprisingly low price of $5.99. Can it get any better?

Well, yes, actually, it can. Because, even if you ignore all of the above books — although they're all very enjoyable and worth picking up — there is one book hitting stores tomorrow that you should beg, borrow or steal enough money to buy. Yes, tomorrow sees the release of Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim Versus The Universe, the fifth in the series of his slacker/romance/magic realist/video game/all things awesome stories, and — even though it's only February — it's a fair bet to say that this may be the book of 2009. You know you want it.

There's no way around it; this week's shipping list is going to be a tempting one, and it'll just lead you to find your nearest comic store via the Comic Shop Locator, before eventually leading you to financial ruin. But, with comics like these? It'll almost be worth it.

The honest answer would be an uncertain "Pretty well, maybe?" While Johns' script was perfectly fine, it was also more of a regular Smallville effort than what comic fans have come to expect from Johns. Yes, there were the geek-friendly shout outs (A Legion of Substitute Heroes reference? Really?). But the scale was smaller and the formula much more generic than fans of his Green Lantern or even his Action Comics runs would've expected.

A lot of that comes from necessity, of course. Not only does the budget of an eight-year-old series on the CW tend to limit the amount of super-powered derring-do, but because the episode was as much about the resolution of a long-running subplot (Chloe's become possessed by Brainiac!) than it was about the Legion themselves.

What we did see of the Legionnaires was... uneven. While the Ron Weasley-izing of Lightning Lad was a bit of a surprise, at least it gave him a personality. The futuristic serenity of Cosmic Boy and Saturn Girl was less convincing, mostly because it was hard to tell what was serenity, and what was bad acting. (When it came to Alexz Johnson's Saturn Girl in particular, I think it may have been the latter). That said, all three were still more interesting to watch than Tom Welling's still-dull Clark or the visiting-yet-entirely-unnecessary Kristin Kreuk's Lana Lang, arguably two of the least-compelling series leads in television history.

The saving grace of the episode, then, was Evil Chloe. Yes, the plot's been done to death on this series alone, but Allison Mack's scenery chewing as she explained why this time Brainiac was going to take over the world (Apparently by sticking her hand into a server and using the internet to read everyone's minds in the world or something; welcome to Smallville logic) was wonderfully fun to watch, and the right match of hammy campness and respect for the story. Of course, everything was solved - and Chloe returned to her much blander self - by the end of the episode, but we all expected that, right?

And so, "Legion" wasn't the OMG GREATEST SMALLVILLE EVER that many - including myself, I admit - were hoping for, but it still managed to be strong enough within one of the strongest seasons of the show for years. Now, if Johns wants to return to the show to follow through on his hint of bringing Clark into the 31st Century, that could be exactly what I was hoping for all along...

Episode writer Geoff Johns, who's currently writing the characters in the Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds series from DC Comics, explained the genesis of bringing the 31st century superteens into the CW's angst-ridden drama:

‘Smallville’ had been featuring Green Arrow for some time, and Black Canary and Cyborg and Bart Allen had made appearances, and since the Legion is such a big part of the Superman mythology from when he was younger, I had an idea to introduce them into the ‘Smallville’ world too... I was casually talking to [former ‘Smallville’ producer] Jeph Loeb one day, who obviously knows the showrunners – Darren, Todd, Kelly and Brian – and he mentioned it to them that I had an idea for an episode. They called me up and were pretty excited to hear it. So I pitched them the idea of the Legion and how it affected Clark and what it would mean to the characters in the series. And they loved it. I spent a couple weeks in the writers’ room with them breaking the story and working on the script and then flew up for the shoot. So that’s how it all came together. It was really pretty amazing.

As a longtime Legion geek, I have to admit that I love the call-out each character's outfit has to their comic book version, even if it it also makes them look pretty ridiculous as well. Johns is optimistic that they'll be successful enough to make a return appearance:

I can tell you the door is left open pretty wide for them and other Legionnaires. If there’s a Season 9, I would love to write another episode.

As long as you're going to have some version of this scene, Geoff? You can bring them back whenever you want.

The "Legion" episode of Smallville airs on January 15th at 8pm on the CW.

Image from Kryptonsite (Via).

Geoff Johns Talks Legion of Smallville [Comic Book Resources]

Talking to website Comic Book Resources about the reasons for the series' cancellation, Shooter knew exactly who to blame:

An unimpeachable source, an old friend in a position to know, tells me that sales of comics are down in general, and that sales of DC comics are down in particular, pretty much across the board... Sales of ‘The Legion of Super-Heroes’ aren’t great, but they’re a lot better than those of some of the titles they’re keeping. I think canceling the book is a graceful way of getting rid of me. I complain too much and too loudly.

(To put things in some context: Legion, under Shooter's reign, is currently DC's third-lowest selling superhero book, and one of the two series selling less was cancelled prior to the announcement of Legion's death.)

If you're wondering what kind of complaints Shooter may have had, he happily rattled off some of them:

I must add that [Shooter's artist] Francis Manapul is going to be great someday – maybe one of the best of all time... He already shows flashes of brilliance. He works very hard and seems to care a lot – but that and a $1.85 gets you a cup of coffee. As soon as Francis groks what business he’s in – storytelling – as soon as he realizes that conveying the story and information clearly, at a glance, is first priority, he’ll be a contender. It’s not just about making cool shots that vaguely relate to what was asked for in the script... Inker Livesay and letterer Steve Wands did their jobs well, no problems there, but as for the rest of us, if we had done our jobs right, if the story had been good enough, if the story had been told well, if the coloring hadn’t been murky, if the covers hadn’t been weak, if there hadn’t been so many production mistakes, if there had been more promotion, if there had been enough of a buzz, if we’d been allowed to have a character with that Super ‘S,’ maybe we could have succeeded.

(Don't worry; not only did he later clarify that he wasn't blaming Manapul for the book's cancellation, he also included himself in the blame game:

[L]et’s focus on the real culprit – me. I guess what it really all comes down to is that my work wasn’t good enough to overcome all the small problems further down the line. If you’re out at first base, it doesn’t matter if you slide in at second.

There's nothing like a sports metaphor to confuse a moment of humility.)

Amusingly, Shooter ends the interview by saying "I have several offers [for future work] – none from DC." Somehow, that last part doesn't surprise me - and I can't help but wonder whether the previous offers will dry up as soon as future employers see how eager he can be to share blame when things don't go as well as planned.

Shooter Dishes On Legion Demise [Comic Book Resources]

The beginning of the end came in March, when the CW announced that the animated series Legion of Super-Heroes was ending after only two seasons on the CW (In comparison, similar DC cartoons like The Batman and Teen Titans both lasted five seasons). Without the television show, the tie-in comic Superman And The Legion Of Super-Heroes was also cancelled - the last issue is due next month - and this week saw final confirmation that the main Legion of Super-Heroes series will end with January's issue... ironically, its 50th. According to DC Executive Editor Dan DiDio, while this doesn't mean the end of the characters, it does mean that they'll be taking it easy for awhile:

We've got a lot of plans and a lot of thought for the Legion right now, but coming out of [current Final Crisis tie-in series] Legion of 3 Worlds, we're going to let the characters rest for a little bit and see where we go from there.

If true, this would mean that - once Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds finishes at the start of next year - the franchise will finish its 50th anniversary by no longer appearing on a regular basis for the first sustained period since its creation.

Thing is, we don't think it's true.
There's a lot of wiggle room in DiDio's comment, to start with. Yes, he talks about letting "the characters rest for a little bit," but that's after saying that there are "a lot of plans" for the franchise, a point he returned to later in the same interview when asked about rumors that Legion of 3 Worlds writer Geoff Johns would want to take on the characters on a more permanent basis:

You know what? I think we'd love Geoff to write everything right now. But realistically, he's got a pretty full slate with everything that's going on... He's got Flash, Green Lantern, JSA, Action, and specials coming up because this thing called Blackest Night is looming. But I'm sure that the Legion will stay close to Geoff and near and dear to him as well, and you'll probably see some of them appear through some of his runs down the line. I don't want to give too much away. But there's always plans for the Legion. They're an important part of the DC Universe.

Anytime that someone says "I don't want to give too much away," then there's definitely something to be given away... which is especially interesting considering that DiDio didn't actually say "no," anywhere in response to the question.

(Maybe more importantly, all of Johns' recent work with the characters has been clearly leading to something bigger than "letting the characters rest" - he's revived a previously-abandoned version of the franchise and has been rehabilitating those older versions of the characters for something. He's also been doing so in a series of high-profile settings - the Justice League story "The Lightning Saga," his Action Comics six-part story, and now Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds have all been stories on high-selling titles given a lot of publicity by the publisher - which again suggests that this isn't some pet project Johns is doing in his spare time.)

Of course, the other place that we know that Johns is going to be writing the Legion for sure is on this season of Smallville, where - spoiler alert - the Legion are due to show up in the eighth episode in some CW version of their first comic appearance (Namely, traveling back in time to fuck with Clark before telling him that he's awesome in the future). Again, hardly a low-profile place for the characters to rest, if that was the intent.

Add this to the fact that fan favorite Legion creators Paul Levitz and Keith Giffen have been teasing a return to the characters since San Diego Comic-Con and it seems less and less likely that DC is mothballing the characters as they claim, but instead trying to dampen down expectations ahead of a relaunch at some point in 2009. This wouldn't be the first time DC has tried this approach - they prefaced Final Crisis's revamp of the Jack Kirby New Gods characters with a series called Death of The New Gods, after all - but their timing does appear to be slightly off; shouldn't this kind of fake-out be done so that the "Ha, only joking! Here they are again after all!" reveal comes on the 50th anniversary, instead of the whole "Yeah, time to put the toys down for awhile" part? Kind of makes you glad that DC didn't decide to do anything to mark Superman's birthday; otherwise, we might have celebrated that occasion with a rehash of 1992's biggest comic stunt, only without the mullet-sporting return a few months later.

The concept of Space Fatigue first appeared in Adventure Comics #318, and is best summarized by the Polite Dissent blog's description of the symptoms:

First, impatience.
Second, irritability.
Third, confusion.
Fourth, delusions of grandeur.
And finally, catatonia.

The reality is somewhat less dramatic, but no less dangerous. In 1980, NASA was tasked by the US Congress to investigate the effects space travel had on pilot fatigue, and in 1999, they presented their findings:

Throughout the course of this outstanding research program, it has been evident that pilot fatigue is a significant safety issue in aviation. Rather than simply being a mental state that can be willed away or overcome through motivation or discipline, fatigue is rooted in physiological mechanisms related to sleep, sleep loss, and circadian rhythms. These mechanisms are at work in flight crews no less than others who need to remain vigilant despite long duty days, transmeridien travel, and working at night when the body is programmed for sleep.

The solution? Well, that didn't come until this year, and apparently, it's sticking wires into your brain. Or something:

The brain cap sends weak pulses of near-infrared light into the brain, then analyzes the reflected wavelengths. The results reveals how much oxygen is in the brain’s blood, which is a gauge of it’s activity (is that why I like to do hand stands?). The psychiatrist who is developing the scanner, Gary Strangman, said that he and others are already using the device on Earth-bound patients.

Yes, that's right; the best that modern science can come up with to deal with the problem is a device that allows you to monitor whether you're getting a little abnormal. With the advent of regular commercial space travel looking increasingly likely in our lifetimes and this problem remaining unsolved, now may be a good time to consider living underground, if only to avoid the spaceships that will soon be falling out of the sky on a regular basis due to pilot error brought on by fatigue.

The TARDIS: It's possibly not the most famous time machine in science fiction (yet) - that would probably be a certain car that you'll meet below - but it's definitely the most distinctive. Doctor Who's stylish acronymtastic (its name stands for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space) mode of transport may have started life as a means of keeping the show's 1963 first episode budget down thought up by BBC staff writer Anthony Coburn, but it's since become one of the most recognizable images in SF TV. Something that the BBC must be happy about, having trademarked the familiar blue box in 2002.

The Cosmic Treadmill: A glorious example of Silver Age comic book (il)logic, the Flash's self-built "cosmic treadmill" allowed him to travel backwards and forwards in time - as well as through parallel universes - by running so fast that he'd hit the perfect vibrational frequency that would allow him to zip away. Created by Flash and Green Lantern writer John Broome, the somewhat ridiculous gimmick has stayed around in the Flash books ever since, proving that some ideas are so dopey that they cross the line into permanently awesome.
Doc Brown's DeLorean: What is it about the time machine from Back To The Future that makes it so perfect? That it was one of the first green time machines (after that whole plutonium thing, of course)? The very specific need for a very particular speed? The fact that it put the already spacey look of one of the '80s most impractical cars to good use? Perhaps all of the above, but what will always single it out for our love and adoration was the fulfillment of Doc Brown's promise that, where we're going, we won't need roads.

The Time Bubble: Ah, the simplicity of 1950s design. The Time Bubble - so named because it's a clear bubble that travels through time - first appeared in 1958's Adventure Comics #247 as the 30th century's favored method of time-travel, and who can deny something with such sleekness and beauty? Thank creators Otto Binder and Al Plastino for what must surely be the objet d'art aesthetic of purity that all other time machines should aspire to.

The Time Tunnel: On the one hand, I should be more worried that they never really got the time tunnel to actually work properly, but on the other, dude. It was a time tunnel, an honest-to-goodness man-made version of the Guardian of Forever, but with less Joan Collins - You didn't need to operate any funky machinery or maintain your internal vibrational frequency, you simply needed to enter the tunnel and off you went. The only drawback, if the experience of Tony Newman and Doug Philips is anything to go by, is that you'll never get to come home again. But if you liked your present-day life so much, why would you time travel in the first place, right?

Enough With The Guest-Stars Already. Hey, I'm as big a DC Comics nerd as you're likely to find, but having the entire Justice League continually drop in (and making Green Arrow a regular cast member in this new season)? It's a little much. It's one thing to make it seem as if Clark's less alone in his meandering battle for truth, justice and looking confused while he fails to actually solve any problem himself, but it's another when he's constantly being outshone by everyone else around him. That said...

When You Have Guest-Stars, Make Them Count. Having the Legion of Super-Heroes show up this year has a lot of potential, because - unlike teenage Green Arrow, teenage Aquaman, teenage Flash, Cyborg, Black Canary and the Martian Manhunter - they're an established and important part of the Superman mythos (Yes, I know the other characters - well, with the exception of Cyborg - are all members of the Justice League with Clark, but that isn't really the same thing). Similarly, if teenaged Bruce Wayne ever appeared in the show (or even Diana Prince, for that matter), that would also be an event. But more importantly, if/when those characters appear in the show, have them appear for a reason that is more than just "guest stars who are also easter eggs for the comic fans," and have their appearance mean something to Clark.

Stop Repeating Storylines That No-One Cares About. Seriously. We all get that the Luthors were not to be trusted, but that doesn't mean that Lex and/or Lionel had to have roughly several million secret labs, projects or experiments that they feel compelled to hide from everyone they know until it threatens the fate of the world. Let's move on from that kind of thing, especially now that both Luthors seem to be gone from the show. Similarly, any plot that turns a regular cast member into someone with a dark secret that generally involves superpowers? We don't want to see it. Especially if it involves someone getting magical Kryptonian tattoos and then becoming a ninja.

Start Making Your Stories Count. I'm not looking for Lost-style continuity here, but Smallville seems to happen in this weird soap operatic world where nothing anyone does ultimately has any meaning whatsoever: Bad guys die and no-one seems that bothered about it. Friends betray each other on a regular basis, and once the melodrama has died down, it's never mentioned again. The state of relationships change as the plot dictates, and the viewer is left not really caring about anyone anymore because it'll probably all be different next week after all. Remember that whole continuity thing that Buffy was so good at, Smallville writers? How's about trying that for awhile?

Most importantly, Let Clark Be The Star Of Your Show. Look, I know that Tom Welling's limited acting ability makes it harder than you'd probably like (Reason number seven that Lex was the most interesting character in the show? Michael Rosenbaum could act the pants off've Welling. And, in the fevered imagination of many 'shippers, probably did on a regular basis), but you've got to give him something to work with. Throughout the seven years of Smallville so far, Clark has been the most passive hero imaginable. For the first couple of years, that worked because - hey! - he was still learning, and also, he was the only one with all the superpowers. But now that it's seven years later and it seems that almost everyone around Clark has either had powers at one point or is related to someone with them, you can't use that excuse anymore. Another problem is that, the longer the show's gone on, the more we've learned that Jor-El and the rest of the Kryptonians seem to have had dealings with Earth before Clark's arrival. The intention was probably to deepen the whole Krypton mythology, but all it really did was make Clark less special; suddenly, it wasn't luck that brought him to Earth, but his dad's plan, and by the way, he's not even the first (or, with Kara's arrival, the last) Kryptonian to come to the planet. When your protagonist is surrounded by characters who seem more interesting, likable and powerful than he is, why are we supposed to care that much about him?

Alternatively, you could just ignore all of this and have Clark and Lois go undercover as a couple to investigate some random crazy dude. I'm sure that'll work as well.

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

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

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

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

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

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

It isn't just Serenity lunchboxes from Dark Horse Comics this week; they're also putting out a slab of goodness (in the form of Hellboy spinoff, Lobster Johnston Vol. 1: Iron Prometheus, bringing Mike Mignola's pulp crimefighter face to face with mystic Nazis on the eve of World War II.) And a slab of franchise-appeasing nostalgia (Star Wars Omnibus: Droids Volume 1, showing you yet more comedic misadventures of C3P0 and R2-D2 flying solo without parental guidance. It's just like Weird Science, trust me. Okay, maybe not).

Elsewhere in the world of four color periodicals, the fun is mostly coming from Berkeley's Image Comics: Rick Remender and Kieron Dwyer's "zombies, meet porn" comedy XXXombies gets a paperback collection, Earthworm Jim creator Doug Tennapel's new book Monster Zoo (soon to be a major motion picture!) comes out. And most importantly, the first collected volume of Proof (Imagine X-Files crossed with Hellboy, with Bigfoot replacing Mulder) hits stores as well.

Marvel Comics are, as is so often the case, chasing after the movie dollar with Hulk Vs. The Marvel Universe, a 224-page collection of Bruce Banner's mean green alter ego punching your favorite superheroes over and over. If you're looking for more than just violence, Brian Michael Bendis' Ultimate Origins begins, giving you a massive dose of conspiracy theory to accompany the secret origins of both Captain America and Wolverine; it's pretty, but potentially too dense for its own good. Also pretty is Astonishing X-Men Sketchbook, an art-heavy teaser to Warren Ellis and Simone Bianchi's relaunch of the Joss Whedon mutant book.

DC Comics, meanwhile, are pretty much taking the week off with the exception of one book. I mean, sure, the Legion of Super-Heroes: 1050 Years In The Future is going to be an enjoyable anthology of stories from the 50 year history of the superteens from the next millennium, and Robin/Spoiler is more than just Batman's sidekick ruining the next episode of Battlestar Galactica for you (Spoiler is, in actuality, his thought-dead-but-not-really girlfriend). But still, the only DC book that counts this week is the first issue of Trinity, their new weekly book spotlighting the threesome that is Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman's unique relationship. It may not be as sexy as that sounds, but nonetheless, with Kurt Busiek and Ultimate Spider-Man's Mark Bagley at the creative wheel, it's very possibly going to be the most entertaining book to hit the stands in the next seven days.

You know the drill of this part by now: You can find the complete list of everything shipping here and find where to buy the lunchbox of your choice here. Because, seriously people. Lunchboxes.

Don't get us wrong: EW's Final Crisis preview was apocalyptic enough to get us excited to see what's going to happen to Superman and friends when evil takes over the world at the end of the month - especially with gods dying in dumpsters and lines like "Let the space cops handle the fallout" - but it's almost more exciting to see Wizard Magazine's four page preview from Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds, showing us another twisted version of Clark Kent's arrival on Earth... Except that, this time, Clark is the insane fanboy-made-bad "Superman Prime," and the people who discover him in a Kansas field 31st-Century bigots who try to kill him. Obviously, that isn't going to end well.

Hitting several comics fanboy G-spots at once in this preview alone, the series is intended to, in the words of writer Geoff Johns, "show fans and readers how awesome the Legion [of Super-Heroes] can be."

The series launches in August.

DC's 'Final Crisis' [EW.com]
Legion of Three Worlds #1, Exclusive Sneak Peek [Wizard Universe]

The board - a callback to a subplot from DC's successful 52 series - is made up of multiple phrases or, weirdly enough, math problems that tie into already-announced, rumored or completely unknown stories for Superman, Batman and their (super) friends. Some of them are obvious:

Submit and Resist are both titles tied in with the upcoming Final Crisis storyline, as already announced by DC. Same with Evil Won (Final Crisis taking place after evil has apparently beaten good in that traditional never-ending battle), First Boy/Last Boy (Crisis will, according to writer Grant Morrison, start with Anthro, the first boy on Earth, and end with Kamandi, the last boy on Earth), Girlfight (Morrison has promised a fight between Supergirl, the teen girl personification of all things good, and Mary Marvel, newly-appointed pin-up girl for evil) and Loneliness + Alienation + Fear + Despair + Self Worth (etc.), which is one possible version of "the Anti-Life Equation," DC's mythical way to remove free will in people (This version appeared in Morrison's 2006 Mister Miracle series, which has been named multiple times as the key book to read before Final Crisis).

Equally clear are Best Woman For Job - A Man, which ties into this summer's Wonder Woman storyline where it's decided that Wonder Woman has failed in her mission to bring peace to the world and needs to be replaced with a man called The Olympian; 1,000/3 = 1, a reference to Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds, which brings three different worlds of 1000 years in the future together; You Can Go Home Again, tying into this summer's Justice Society of America Annual, which takes Power Girl back to a version of her home planet, Earth 2; I Am Batman?/I Am Bruce Wayne?, about Wayne's identity crisis in Batman: R.I.P.; The Dead Shall Rise, the already-announced tagline of next year's The Blackest Night storyline; and Sightings All Around Us, which is a shout-out to DC's new "Sightings" branding for declared-important comics.

Everything else, though, is a little more shaky - 52 - 1 = 0 could be about DC's 52 alternate Earths, or simply pointing to last week's DC Universe Zero. Kings Reborn may be a reference to the potential return of the original Aquaman, who was, after all, King of Atlantis, and Rockin' Robins just might be about which Robin gets to become the new Batman. But the other ones...? Here are our entirely baseless guesses:

100% Alien - Something to do with the rumored death of 1950s alien-amongst-us, the Martian Manhunter.
Who is Wonder Dog? - Well, it used to be Rex, Nazi-fightin' pup, but for some reason, I'm seeing a Wonder Woman tie-in here...
There is No-One... Yet - Probably a Final Crisis mention of some sort, as is He Is The Force (The "astro-force" being a Jack Kirby invention as is Crisis badguy Darkseid) and He Wakes The World Ends.
The Son Rises - I'll be very surprised if this isn't a reference to Damien, Batman's bastard son, in the wake of Batman R.I.P.. Same with Murder/Suicide, Father/Son, although that one could also apply to Final Crisis villain Darkseid and his good guy son Orion.
The Traitor Among Us - Who better to have traitors (and, for that matter, an "us") than a gang of villains? It's either something to do with Final Crisis: Rogues' Revenge or Gail Simone's new Secret Six series.
No 2 For You is more than likely another Power Girl/Earth-2/Justice Society of America Annual reference, as PG has to end up back on regular Earth in time to launch her own series this summer, but 1 (JSA) 2 probably has more to do with the team's rumored break-up this summer.
Mercy Ruling and Who Questions the Question are both very likely to have something to do with Greg Rucka's Final Crisis: Revelations series, where God's spirit of retribution, the Spectre, meets lesbian private eye the Question.
TT Have No Reception reminds us all that there isn't a Teen Titans cartoon any more. Or, perhaps, that the Titans comic will be spinning off something called Terror Titans this Summer, about some unpopular teenage badguys... whereas Titans, the other TT-spinoff book is dealing with the eeeevil reborn Trigon, who just may be 4 Times As Red in his new incarnation.
No Glory No Gold seems to be a shout-out to the Booster Gold series in some way, while Paper Not Plastic feels suspiciously like a reference to a revived Plastic Man for some reason... Better than Rocket Vs. Satellite, which suggests that the JLA's spacebound headquarters is soon not going to be alone up there.

The last two, however, are just weird: Superman: Red or Blue? is, I hope, hints that we'll finally investigate Superman's political preference (Let's face it; he's an Obama man. You know it, I know it, it's pretty obvious) instead of rehash the old Superman-gets-split-in-two storyline we've seen at least twice before, and I am convinced that Post No Bills is there purely to fuck with us.

But now that we've put ourselves out there, why don't you tell us what you think the board is all about? We shouldn't be the only ones embarrassed about how off-base our suggestions are this time next year, after all.

Dan DiDio on DC Universe #0 [Newsarama]

Time travel in Booster Gold, Space war in Green Lantern, and a sci-fi melange in Action Comics (time travel, alternate dimensions, planets full of Bizarros) - You seem to have taken almost all of your superhero books at DC in a more science fiction direction than usual over the last year or so; even your Justice Society of America currently has the Superman of a parallel Earth as a member. Is this intentional, and if so, what brought it on?

Not really intentional, no, but I have been striving to push my books and writing in general into a different direction.  Delving into the concepts and characters a bit more, exploring the DC Universe as a whole in a different light.  Coming out of 52, I really felt reinvigorated for some reason.  Or maybe inspired is a better word.  And with everything that DC's been gearing up for in this post-DC Universe #0 world, it just adds more fuel to the fire.  Science-fiction is inherent in a super-hero universe in general and I'm just trying to take advantage of that.

Would you ever want to tackle straight scifi, away from the familiar superhero characters?

Sure.  I'd also like to tackle an historical story, a western, a horror adventure.  All genres.  The film I'm working on with the Robot Chicken team is more of a family/comedy in the same vein as a Pixar movie, but with a bit more humor and Christmas espionage action on top of that.  I've been very focused on the DC Universe in the comics world and, quite honestly, that's where my passion lies when it comes to comics.  I'll be venturing outside it a bit with some creator owned projects, but my focus is the DC Universe.  It's what I enjoy doing more than nearly anything else.

A lot of DC's Silver Age books were essentially pretty straight science fiction stories disguised in superhero costume (Sometimes without that much of a costume; Adam Strange and Hawkman, for example) . While Marvel books seemed to be based on atomic age fear of what could go wrong, DC had a more optimistic take on the wonders of technology, even if their idea of what technology could actually do was somewhat mistaken. Do you think that one side or another has been proven right in the longterm?

That's a long conversation and extremely subjective in my opinion.  Everyone has something that speaks to them.  There's something in Wolverine that speaks to people that I don't entirely get.  But a lot of people don't gravitate towards the Legion of Super-Heroes.  They don't see the struggle that team goes through, the dynamics and characters that their fans and I connect with.  My goal when I tackle these characters is to really show, not tell, why I subscribe to the DC Universe.  Why am I fascinated by Captain Cold and the Rogues or the Justice Society?  When a reader comes up to me and says, "I never really got into Green Lantern before Rebirth or Sinestro Corps." that's what it's all about to me.  Someone at the NYCC show pointed out Gary and I's work on Action Comics and said, "When Superman said, 'I'm for everyone.' I finally understood Superman after all these years."  So who was proven right?  There's no right or wrong answer in the take on technology and scifi, there's just the one we prefer.

If you're in the Sunnyvale, CA area tomorrow, you might want to go and tell Geoff that you're a fan yourself: he's celebrating the release of DCU: Zero with a signing at Comics Conspiracy between 2 - 6pm (Click here for details). Otherwise, just pick up the 50 cent book at your local store and get in on the ground floor before Superman and Batman spend the summer getting their asses kicked.

DC Universe: Zero [DC Comics]