The secret came out thanks to Shari Goldhagen, who certainly knows how to live up to the geek girl stereotype:

Do I still read comic books? I do. Have I ever flicked the bean to some well-written Smallville fan fiction? It's possible. (Hey, I'm a writer; a good metaphor turns me on.)

After being introduced to the concept of comic cons as the ideal place for hooking up by a potentially fictitious comic store clerk ("'Really,' she said. 'It's all these people you see only a couple of times a year at hotels, you're all into the same things, people are dressed up, you've been flirting online for months…It's pretty hot'"), Goldhagen goes undercover at March's New York Comic Con to investigate for herself only to find... the greatest lame chat-up line ever:

Later, a giant of a man in a very official Batsuit joins me in line for a bottle of $4 water. I look at him and he looks back at me, irises extra blue against all the eye black under his cowl.

"You know there was a girl Robin," he says. "Stephanie Brown."

"Actually, if you count Carrie Kelly in The Dark Knight Returns, there were two girl Robins." I stretch the words out, making them luxurious, and curl my lips into a crooked come-hither grin.

Batman's smile is slow, seductive-and really freaking creepy with the head-to-toe-armor. Other than his height and the set of his jaw (not bad, but no Christian Bale), I have no idea what this guy looks like, but I do feel an instant familiarity and comfort level with him. If we were making out in my apartment and he unearthed my secret stash of Detective Comics, I wouldn't have to invent a story about how I was just holding them for a friend.

"Yes, I forgot about Carrie." He gives me a long once-over. "Will I be seeing you back at the cave tonight?"

If San Diego Comic-Con wasn't already sold out, this essay would have made it the most popular destination of the year amongst Carrie Kelly fetishists... if it wasn't already.

Geek Love [Penthouse, possibly NSFW although story has no nudity]

To be fair, some of these made us uncomfortable in a good way, like old bronze lady. But more often then not, girls peacocking their backsides next to rocket ships and big-headed lady dolls have us looking over our shoulder in fear that it followed us home. Enjoy.

The talented Mr. GIbbons took us aside and told the world that whether they're ready or not, they're going to get big blue dong. Kind of. In reality, he explained, it's a just a "mental construction" of a man so the penis if not really a penis. So meta.

But what about a possible Martha Washington movie? To that, Gibbons replied that he thinks it would make a great movie, but he would have to talk to Miller some more about directing the picture. As he should because, well, The Spirit was awful.

Such was the kind of debate taking place in this biblically-themed discussion of the generation of artists from the golden age of comics. The ones who created the superhero, the supervillain, and as Jerry Robinson (creator of the freakin' Joker) describes, "were almost 99% Jewish."

The panel was moderated by David Hajdu, author of last year's fantastic "The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How it Changed America." Panel members included Arie Kaplan (From Krakow to Krypton: Jews and Comics), Danny Fingeroth (Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics and the Creation of the Superhero), Simcha Weinstein (Up, Up and Oy Vey!: How Jewish History, Culture and Values Shaped the Comicbook Superhero) and Robinson, the resident living legend of the panel. Or as Weinstein, the biggest rabbi/fanboy I've ever met said: "I get to pray to god but Jerry IS a god."

The genesis (pun intended) of this panel was a way of paying homage to the veterans of the golden age of comic books, many of whom entered into the biz because the anti-semitism of the day prevented them joining the professions that are Jewish stereotypes today. The other stereotype, of overbearing Jewish mothers hounding their daughters about when they would settle down with a nice doctah or a lawyah would take a few more decades.

But the discussion gradually dissolved from speculating how many writers and inkers were Jewish to how many of the classic superheroes were Jewish themselves. Certainly there is the obvious parallel of Moses and Superman. Both men from noble birth whose parents shoved them into a vessel (wicker basket/rocket ship, same difference) to be raised by a foster family and eventually become the savior of mankind. "Though it would be very hard to circumsize Superman," Rabbi Weinstein noted.

Also, like a god, Superman's powers make him nearly omnipotent. It's tricky not to paint yourself into a corner writing a Superman story, probably why so many of his tales stem from the drama of people expecting too much from him.

For Jews, historically the outsiders or victims in nearly every society they have been a part of, the superhero is the ultimate symbol of assimilation. There is nothing more American than Captain America (except maybe Stephen Colbert draped in nothing but the American flag), and he was created by two nice Jewish boys from New York. Joe Simon and Jack Kirby's lives were pretty far removed from Wonder Bread™ white-picket-fence Americana, so they created a living, breathing, ass-kicking embodiment of the American flag as a way to fit in. And mainstream America ate it up.

Still, the three authors on stage, all of whom interviewed many golden-age comics people during the creation of their books, said the artists they spoke to were always hesitant to admit there was a direct Jewish subtext in the comics. When Marvel sent Captain America off to battle Hitler and his Nazi goons, it was to sell lots of comic books, not to end the Holocaust.

And until recently, there were very few superheroes who could have been identified openly as Jews. DC made Batwoman Jewish as a way of diversifying their universe. Marvel outted Quicksilver as one of the chosen people in the 1993 series Infinity Crusade. Even the Thing had his very own Bar Mitzvah in 2002. And many other superheroes and villains have been identified as either practitioners of the Jewish
faith or at least having ancestry of Jewish origin, including Kitty Pryde/Shadow Cat, The Atom, Volcana and Harley Quinn.

Then of course there is Magneto, a Holocaust survivor. Perhaps no villain in all of Comicdom has more tangled motives than he. One fanboy during the Q&A following the discussion made an excellent point that Magneto may in fact be the ultimate Zionist. His dream of Avalon, a haven for mutants to live their lives free of persecution is eerily similar to the story of Israel. Only Theodor Herzl didn't have the power to manipulate metal. Though we might've seen a Jewish homeland a lot earlier if he did.

Like all symbolism-rich fiction out there, the panel members agreed that many correlations between Jews and superheroes are probably best if you don't read too much into them. Superman is not Jewish. (He's not Christ either. I'm talking to you, Bryan Singer.) He's a fictional alien with super strength and the ability to fly.

Fittingly, the only white-haired god the panel members could agree on was sitting right on stage with them. His name was Jerry Robinson.

Apart from the droves of Nurse Jokers, and the standard Star Wars fare (if there's a con with out a Stromtrooper I don't want to know about it), this year had a lot of surprises and classics. Of course there were the Jayne hats, because Joss Whedon was there...what else do you wear to see Joss?? But the biggest surprise was the sheer number of fans donning G.I. Joe wear. Also, is that a lady Snake Eyes I see? Enjoy the round up, and good work guys - especially you, Bat-Mite and Teen Titans.

Spider-Man	Star Wars	Ghostbusters
G.I. Joe	Comic Characters	TV, Movies And Random Fantastic
Watchmen	Batman	Jayne Hats

We could not have compiled this list with out the help from our many volunteers and the very talented Istolethetv and Ellen Wright. Please check out their amazing collections as well.

Jackson sat down and tried to make us really hate Peter Bishop, pontificating about how Peter's a bad guy and has his fingers in the dirty deeds pot. Sorry buddy, we like em' rough. But then, as if our Dawson's Creek-meets-Fringe love couldn't run deeper, Jackson started talking X-Files.

Jackson also revealed why he doesn't believe Olivia and Peter have any sort of romantic connection.

Would Peter really sleep with Olivia's sister and leave Olivia in the dust?

It's quite possible. Peter is a shallow, venal, hedonistic, nihilistic man. So... if Olivia's sister would sleep with him, I think he would absolutely jump at the chance.

But doesn't he have an emotional investment in Olivia?

The emotional involvement for Olivia on her side is with John Scott. Peter is a functionary in her life. It's not an emotional relationship that they have. She needs him to solve the riddle that is Walter. And then she needs Walter to be the crazy genius that he is. So when you say, is there a romantic relationship between the two of them, I don't think there is a romantic relationship between the two of them.

So who's going to love poor Olivia? What about that nice Agent Charlie Francis fellow? The press asked Kirk Acevedo about the chances of these two crazy kids hooking up, and he seemed a bit dubious about the subject.

When is Charlie going to step up his game and go for Olivia?

Kirk Acevedo: It's difficult because we're pretty much doing the episode now [episode 16] that pretty much answers that question the reason why. It's funny because that's one of the little secrets. Obviously in the first episode she's a junior agent who gets the liaison gig, which is a very big step up. I have to play it like she's a colleague and I care for her, but how much I care for her... I can't, it has to be so subtle, because I'm an FBI guy. It takes away from - it's so funny because I can't talk about it, because we're doing it right now. But it's hard because a lot of this stuff is an exposition. When you're a character actor, which is what I am, to play someone that's the polar opposite of you, it's trying to finds a way that you're happy and the character is happy, especially for yourself. Because you can't color it up and that's what you want to do. You want to add all the bells and whistles but you can't. So you keep it simmering.

God, will someone please give Olivia some lovin' so she'll stop shooting everyone?

Mixing police procedural with superheroes, Powers manages to explore the traditions (and cliches) of comic book superheroes in a way that Heroes has never quite accomplished (instead, the NBC drama mostly chooses to imitate them. Especially if they're old X-Men comics), and just may be the superpowered TV show you've always waited for.

Created in 2000 by Ultimate Spider-Man and Avengers writer Bendis - In fact, it was his first superhero comic - and Bulletproof Monk's Oeming, Powers follows two detectives in a police department that investigates homicides that are connected to superhumans... one of whom used to be a superhero himself. Mixing a variety of influences from both inside and outside comics — amongst them Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets, the novel that the TV series Homicide: Life On The Streets was based on — has allowed the series to stay fresh while changing subjects, scope and even publishers throughout its long history.

This isn't the series' first run-in with moving pictures; before news of the FX deal broke this weekend, the comic had been optioned by Sony Pictures as a potential movie for director Frank Oz, but things didn't exactly work out, as Bendis told MTV's Splash Page:

We had to sit through waves of screenplays that were just inappropriate for the product, and for fans of the book. There were whole drafts of the screenplay without [one of the series' two leads] Deena Pilgrim in them. They'd hand me the screenplay and go, "What's wrong with this?" and I'd go "He has no one to talk to!

This time around, that won't be a problem; Bendis himself is writing the script for the FX pilot:

I just handed in a draft to the network and we're getting our notes from the network as soon as [New York Comic Con] is over. So next week I'll get the notes, and as long as they don't involve sock puppets and some sort of orgy scene that I'm not interested in, then hopefully it will go in the right direction.

We're hopeful that there aren't any sock puppet notes because, handled correctly, Powers could be exactly what we wanted from Heroes all along, before we learned to settle for fast-moving schlock: A smart, funny, suspenseful drama that just happens to feature people able to do amazing things. Keep your fingers crossed.

NYCC: Brian Bendis Confirms Live-Action ‘Powers' TV Series On FX, Draft Completed [MTV Splash Page]

That's right people Lance Reddick is back as "crazy eyed" Matthew Abaddon to give you night terrors. The alleged Oceanic attorney dropped the news at the Fringe round-tables at New York Comic Con. While he didn't say much, I'm going out on a limb and saying Abaddon will appear on Lost and shoot a crazy look into the camera, thus sending me into some sort of a coma. When asked if he'd be appearing on Lost Reddick replied:

Yes. I believe it's in two weeks, the 25th. I just heard. I believe it's episode 5.

Glad to have you back, Abby.

Upon learning that I would be attending the Vampire, Werewolf and Zombie Round Table panel here at Comic Con, I was ecstatic with the promise of changelings and shape-shifters sitting around an actual round table, sipping blood from coffee mugs, eating flesh and tufts of hair uncontrollably erupting from their bodies. I was disappointed, therefore, to arrive to the panel and find mere humans sitting tamely behind a long rectangular table at the front of the stage - some actually filtering in late, clearly lacking the extra-human instinct to check their watches.

The panel primarily consisted of authors such as Caitlin Kittredge, whose Nocturne City series features a werewolf detective as its protagonist, and c-oauthors of Zombiemania, an exhaustive guide to zombies in film, Andrew Hershberger and Arnold T. Blumber. A vampire detective series also was mentioned, as apparently the heightened senses of these monsters leads to a lucrative career in crime scene investigation.

But still I stood there blinking waiting for the panelists to change their form and start fighting, biting or attacking the crowd. This panel is a lie.

To be fair, the ancient battle between werewolves and vampires was a touched upon, as well as the gang mentality of zombies and humans' fascination with the creatures that once were human themselves. The panel did have an interesting discussion about the increased demand for horror and dark fantasy during times of political unrest and hardship, obviously illustrated by the Twilight craze and demand for books of that ilk. But, although the panel were arguably experts on their monsters of choice and answered audience members' questions happily, I remained disappointed that I would not in fact be speaking directly to lycanthropes and the undead and couldn't really focus on the marketing distinctions between dark fantasy and horror discussed by the panel.

And of course, to top it all off, disparaging remarks about Twilight were made by all.

At last night's The Venture Bros. panel, creators Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick fielded questions from fans, most of whom were distraught over the decapitation of Monarch henchman #24 in last season's finale. Doc Hammer told fans to move on:

24 is dead. Get over it. We had an argument about it, then it was over.

When one fan questioned whether H.E.L.P.eR., Dr. Venture's robot, who also met with disaster last season, could be put back together, Hammer confirmed that H.E.L.P.eR. is also on the permanent casualty list:

H.E.L.P.eR. is dead. [Pauses for distressed noises] Don't act like you guys like H.E.L.P.eR.

H.E.L.P.eR. may go unmissed, at least by Dr. Venture, but Hammer promises that #21, #24's fellow henchman and near-constant companion, will be profoundly affected by his compatriot's demise:

21 lives for that poor guy. His life is altered dramatically.

Next season we'll get to see how 21 copes with no longer being one half of a duo ("These two are only funny together," Hammer notes). The target of his grief could be Dr. Girlfriend's Murderous Moppets, who, Hammer hinted, could be the next victims in the creators' killing spree. Hammer confessed that he and Publick often forget to write the Moppets into episodes, and have contemplated offing the pair to resolve their Moppet problem. But fan hatred of the pair might just save them:

But now that I find out they're universally hated, I kind of want to keep them around. It's like Erika Kane on All My Children.

Since the dawn of the internet era, various vendors have tried to find a way to make comic books easily accessible on a digital platform. Obviously, none of them caught on. That's about to change. The iPhone, already the Jesus Phone for millions of Apple addicts, is getting ready to become the new Buddy Jesus Phone for millions of comic book fan-boys. The iPhone's 3.5-inch, 480-by-320-pixel high-resolution screen, relative ease-of use and portability finally provide a perfect platform for comic-viewing pleasure. It's why companies like UClick, along with a competitor, iVerse, have already started selling comic books for the iPhone on iTunes, each purchasable as $0.99 downloads through the app store.

In a session here at New York Comic Con, we had a chance to hear a little bit more about a not-so-well-known comic distribution company named UClick. UClick works with comic creators to transfer the medium from a page-by-page format to a more iPhone-friendly panel-by-panel format, creates, then distributes the one-issue apps you can buy on iTunes. Shena Wolf, UClick's comics producer, manages this process by basically, moving speech bubbles around, adding letterboxing and providing other tweaks to the non-artwork areas of the panels to make them fit the constraints of the iPhone.

Unlike other companies that have tried to hokey-up the digitization of comics with AudioBook-like voice-overs or animations and noise-tracks, UClick tries to transfer the experience seamlessly to the iPhone screen. They don't. They transfer a better experience.

It may be minor, but sitting with an iPhone and viewing their most popular converted title - Jeff Smith's Bone - is truly an impressively enjoyable experience. No longer are you accidentally viewing a frame or two ahead because of the nature of multi-panel pages; you're actually able to see it panel-by-panel — just like the artists originally created it. Also, because the iPhone is backlit, you're able to see more vibrant colors and artwork than you'd ever see on crudely-printed paper.

It's not just good for the readers. The model also works well for the content creators. Jorge Vega, owner of Kid Kong Entertainment and Two Fisted Press, writes the comic book Kaeru-Boy, distributed on the iPhone by iVerse, a UClick competitor. "I can leverage the ease of using the platform...downloading from iTunes... allows me as an independent creator to drive more, easier sales. Because of the $0.99 price point, it'll bring in potential new readers." Vega also loves the portability of the iPhone, saying it's "like a virtual long box."

By finally creating a way to fit a comic book cleanly and neatly in your pocket, it's made the entire process of consuming content easier and more transportable. Frankly, I love it. For comic book fanboys, it's great to have a system allowing readers to buy and consume comics whenever they want with a better user experience, at a lower price point and that can be brought anywhere. Sure, if you're a collector who collects for the sake of cold, hard cash, you won't be happy to see this software succeed. But frankly, you should probably go to hell.

[UClick, iVerse]

Celebrating the publisher's 70th anniversary (Marvel has always been very elastic about their age; in 1986, they celebrated their 25th anniversary), Captain America killers Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting are working on a new series called The Marvels Project for a June release, which promises to reveal the "true origins" of Marvel's earliest heroes.

One of the publisher's newest characters - Skaar, Son of Hulk - will get a chance to discover his own true origin this summer, when creator Greg Pak brings the character to Earth for Planet Skaar, a sequel to his earlier Hulk stories, Planet Hulk and World War Hulk. Will Skaar get to meet his dad? Pak wouldn't give a definitive answer, but he did tell fans to "keep your eyes open and your wallets open." Planet Skaar begins in May.

The final big announcement of the con for the publisher was Spider-Man: The Short Halloween, a oneshot written by Saturday Night Live's Seth Meyers and Bill Hader and drawn by Justice League International's Kevin Maguire about a case of mistaken identities between a fake Spider-Man confronted by bad guys and the real Spidey hanging out with the impostor's friends on Hallowe'en. Don't be too surprised to see SNL injokes in the background, according to the creators, although Hader does admit it'd be "weird" to see his fellow cast members in the comic. Well, not if they're the previously unknown bastard children of the Hulk... That kind of thing seems to be happening more often than you'd think, really...

Jordana's Brewster is back as Dr. Jill Roberts. This may make some of you happy and others (like Graeme) sad. I am always for more Brewster, but only if she's just about killing young Chuck; I don't need any of that, "You're my only hope" nonsense. But still, it'll be good to see what the return of Roberts does to little flopsey-haired's psyche. Oh, and you get to meet Jeff (Scott Krinsky)'s sister, which is pretty fantastic as he's a total lunatic (or at least looks like one). So it should be interesting to see what his sister looks like.

But also interesting is the new "gamechanger" ending that the show's creators are working on...

Josh Schwartz: Not writing [the second season finale] as if it's a finale at all. It's actually what they call in the TV business a "gamechanger" of an ending. It's pretty mind blowing, it's going to be really fun. It's something we've been talking about for over two years now. It's going to launch the show in a really exciting, very different direction next year.

Chris Fedak: We knew about this ending so we kind of designed the entire season around it. We're really excited and it pretty much just propels us into season three, and we won't tell you anything more about it.

So who's gonna die? That's our guess as to what's happening. It had better not be Adam Baldwin (Casey) or there will most likely be riots. My guess is, the sister... and then Chuck is on a mission for revenge for the entire next season.

Meanwhile at the panel the official New York Comic Con Chuck panel the gang assembled to debut a quick reel of new footage and talked about Obama is trying to ruin Chuck (meanie) and gab about Yvonne Strahovski sexy new outfits.

The crew also debuted a few new footage bits with Scott Bakula, Chevy Chase clips with Bakula selling the role as Chuck's papa (but they didn't show too much). Andy Richter popped up as Buy And More employee and Sarah is dating.

Whedon has admitted that much of Dollhouse analogizes the issues around prostitution, as his Dolls, or "Actives," are being hired out to perform roles that are dangerous, sexual, or emotionally intimate without their knowledge or consent. Specifically, Whedon wants to explore whether certain actions are truly morally reprehensible, or whether they are what American society has decided to deem morally reprehensible.

In response to questions on whether he has plans to include any gay characters on Dollhouse, Whedon recalled that on Buffy, the writers had a policy that magic could not change a character's sexuality, and that it couldn't be used, for example, as a punishment. But Dollhouse operates with a different set of rules:

On this show, people's personalities are being completely overwritten. When someone hires an active, what they're basically doing is hiring somebody for an experience that absolutely nobody in the world will ever know about including the person that you went through it with...If you don't think that at least a third of the people who hire Actives are not bi-curious, you're naive.

So will be see Eliza Dushku's Echo gently and confidently guide women through their first same sex experience? Or will Dolls prove the perfect insulation against political sex scandals?

While we just got out of the panel, we wanted to be first to tell you the details on the movie adaptations. Both movies will receive four-book weekly work-ups. The four-book arc for Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen will be written by Simon Furman with artwork by Jon Davis-Hunt and Alex Milne. Covers will be drawn by Josh Nizzi.

The four-issue story arc for G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra will be written by Denton J. Tipton with artwork by Casey Maloney.

So began the first ten or so minutes of the Dollhouse pilot. It starts with a quiet yet heated argument between Echo (Eliza Dushku) and Adelle DeWitt (Olivia Williams). The gist of it seems to be that Echo is signing a contract for a five-year term of service, and she's not happy about it - "I don't have a choice, do I?" she snaps. DeWitt reminds her that "Actions have consequences. ... But what if they didn't?"

Then we jump into a wild motorcycle chase through a city, with two people in red helmets racing each other. Then one of them crashes, and takes off her helmet to reveal ... hot, leather-panted Echo! Naturally. She jumps back on the bike and heads off after her opponent, who is way ahead by now. They roll into a restaurant/club area, where a giant banner reads, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY MATT."

Echo, still totally hot, bitches out the motorcycle guy, whom we now know to be Matt. She accuses him of cheating; he says they should let it go and just dance. She agrees! Probably because it's another chance for her to be super hot. And Matt is eating it up - after the dance, they go off to the side and he gives her a speech about what an amazing weekend he's had with her (while she winkingly returns with sexual innuendo). He gives her a heart necklace and says he's just going off to get a drink, but as he walks away he gives her a longing smile.

Another party attendee approaches him. "Who's your friend?" he asks, clearly affected by Echo's hotness. "She had to go," Matt replies, and makes a crack about her carriage turning into a pumpkin at midnight. "Midnight? It's like five," says Clueless Dude.

Meanwhile, Echo is grinning and twisting the heart necklace in her besotted hands, until all of a sudden her face washes clear and she heads away from the party. She gets into a black van with Boyd Langton (Harry J. Lennix), who asks her how it went. "I met a guy," she tells him, grinning. They drive away.

He takes her to what we well know is the Dollhouse facility, and as Echo gets into an elevator, she makes Langton promise to take her back to the party when her "treatment" is over. He nods, but as the elevator doors close his face says: Yeah, right.

In a room full of mind-wiping equipment, Echo continues to babble about how psyched she is to have made such a true romantic connection. She changes out of her party clothes and into yogawear (but is still hot, of course). Tech guy Topher Brink (Fran Kranz) humors her, and then settles her in for a treatment. What follows is a geniuinely cool montage of everything that has passed in the fake life that Echo has just been leading over the weekend - getting the heart necklace from Matt, dancing with him, the motorcycle chase, even her childhood. There are some great flashback effects, and the final shot is the heart necklace crashing to the floor. Then comes the part we've all seen in the trailer, where Echo suddenly wakes and sees Topher.

"Did I go to sleep?" she asks. And then: "Shall I go now?" "If you like," he replies. So Masterpiece Theater. Echo walks away, completely blank, and wanders the Dollhouse facility with the other Actives. We follow Topher as he grabs her still-hot memory disk from the mindwipe station and takes it to the storage room. Langton is waiting for him, looking pensive. Topher makes his familiar joke - a ha ha, she doesn't remember anything now! - but goes on to speechify about how they've just given two people an unforgettable weekend. They're philanthropists. Langton seems unconvinced: "I think she finally met the right guy," he tells Topher.

They walk out and gaze at the Actives. "Not a care in the world," says Topher.

Then we cut to a little girl with long brown hair, and a guy in a limo who's talking to her on the phone. "I did my homework," she tells him. He says she still can't watch reality TV because it will melt her brain, and therefore her reward for doing her schoolwork is - "Knowledge," she finishes. "I hate you." It's a cute father/daughter moment that is quickly overtaken by what happens after she hangs up the phone.

The girl flops on her bed, and black-geared men appear over her. They clap a cloth over her mouth and hoist her into a black body bag. As she looks up, dazed and frightened, we see that one of the men is wearing a creepy tan mask that half-hides his face.

End of Act One.

Of course, Tahmoh Penikett's character Paul Ballard doesn't appear in Act One - "this is Tahmoh-free TV," Whedon told us cheekily. After the clip, Penikett said a few words about his character, and he expanded a bit on what we've heard before. Of course, Special Agent Ballard is a golden-hearted Mulder Redux, assigned to the Dollhouse case as the laughingstock of the rest of the FBI - who don't believe it's the human trafficking operation it really is. Ballard investigates Echo, and while he is at first dazzled by her beauty and eventually becomes her rescuer, "there's more to it than that," Penikett told us. With these characters, nothing is either one way or the other; Ballard ends up facing quite a few moral dilemmas, and by the end of this 13-episode run has gone through a bit of a personality change himself.

Other spoilers? Whedon revealed to us that Dushku sings in episode 3, when Echo plays the backup singer for a pop star. Apparently, though, a musical episode of Dollhouse is not yet in the works - "oh, I can't sing," Penikett explained. But he has done several years of Muay Thai - a martial art that is often referred to as "Thai boxing" - and he does it shirtless in the pilot. (Move over, hot!Echo.)

A fan asked if we were ever going to see Dollhouse comics. Whedon said he didn't think so, because the strength of Dollhouse was the acting and the interaction between people - it doesn't pack the superhero visual punch of Buffy. Whedon did, however, say that he would look into web series, although he hopes that "people will be into the show enough that they don't have to ask about other things!" As in: Please don't cancel this before it's time, FOX.

And as for Dr. Horrible? Whedon definitely wants to do more guerrilla filmmaking, he said, and also definitely wants to do "what's up with Dr. Horrible." Much cheering ensued.

Champions Online will be an vastly action-oriented MMO — the brief clip screened featured battles with exploding forcefields and clashing katanas. Unlike games where a single enemy is encountered, Champions will have its heroes fighting off squads of attacking henchmen at first, with new strategies and tactics introduced as gameplay progresses and your advancing character comes into contact with hardcore villains and supervillains. The game is especially interested in elevating the level of personalization and character-building, allowing for unique modification of powers and putting more power than ever in the hands of players.

What's special about this game?

—Customization! A huge part of what they're excited to bring to Champions Online is enabling players to have hands-on creativity within the game's world. The game will be classless, featuring pre-defined themes and power sets, but your character will be defined by the skills and talents you choose, entirely self-constructed. There will be opportunity for hybrid characters that can switch between offense and defense capabilities, and characters in general will be able to temporarily take over the action role of a team member if they go down. You'll be able to select various roles, switch up your build, and learn about more powers than you'll be able to use at once. The mobility of switching between active and supporting roles is an exciting development, meaning no one team member will feel forced into a box by their chosen skill-set.

—The Nemesis System — the creators seem the most excited about this new, extensive feature. You'll be able to build your own villain that you can fight once you build up your reputation. You can customize your villain entirely, choose their power sets and minions, even create a background and mythology for them. The game's creators suspect that as much time if not more will be pored into villain-creation than into heroic character-building. You'll be able to invite people to fight with you, then show off your nemesis-constructing skills when your personal villain attacks. This element of being able to create and share the result with friends is one of the features creators wanted most for Champions Online. By the time you're creating your own nemesis, you'll be very well-acquainted with the game, and your own villains will likely be the most difficult enemies you encounter.

—Action-oriented MMORPG — There will rarely be static fights and there will always be somewhere interesting to go. You'll be able to constantly move around, with lots of interaction in many different environments. There will be constant activity on the game, marked at first by fighting off swarms of lower-level minions. If you've always wanted to take on a ring of bad guys and show them how it's done, this will be your chance. It'll feel heroic to battle coordinated attackers, feel even better when you reach more challenging solo opponents.

—A Variety of Vistas — Champion Online's creators wanted to bust out of just being set in city-scapes. Millennium City (set in the ruins of a very old Detroit) will be the hub of adventuring, but there will be a ton of different places in the world to visit and find new challenges. Every area will have a strikingly different feel. A few of the settings the panel let slip featured a desert, a location in Canada, and Monster Island. While "everything and the kitchen sink" is in Millennium City, there will be many types of neighborhoods/genres within the disparate cites sites. Each place will look and feel distinct, and offer a different type of gameplay, from typical showdowns to espionage to crime-solving.

—Complex Storylines — One writer shared that "the amount of dialogue and scripting is insane." He had recently submitted 29 pages of dialogue for one neighborhood of one setting. Although there are several overarching storylines threaded throughout, there willl be tons of stories and missions that mingle horror and comedy with heroism.

Info from the Q & A:

—The stats operation system will be unique, and you'll be able to use items, talents, and "perk rewards" to alter your status.
stat operation: use items and talents and perk rewards, able to alter your stats

—Will there be unusual weapons? (The questioner wanted a guitar). There will be a lot of unusual weapons on top of more than 200 "mundane" weapons, plus we are promised "crazy fun cool new stuff."

—You'll be able to band together with other players to form "supergroups."

—Can you punch people through plate glass? There'll be breakable surfaces, along with interesting things to pick up and hurl (the biggest at the moment is a tank, but they hinted there may be an F-14 jet to throw at some point).

—Do you have to grind out levels with the daily grind so many other games require? Certain levelling-up is a feature of most MMOs, but the creators believe that Champions Online is unique because there are no limitations to where superheroes can go and what they can do; the genre gives more freedom, and players will be involved in creating their own content.

—Will there be super-vehicles? The game's creators are starting to work on vehicle tech, aware that some players are interested in "supercars and motorcycles and superpogo sticks," and are in development stages with those ideas. Super-vehicles aren't guaranteed for launch.

—What happens at the max level? Work is progressing on the endgame now. Items will continue to mean upgrades to your character, and they're working on having an arena-like fight club. The game is built to be in the hands of the players, and the endgame will grow with player suggestion and input.

And it is this: Why is an event that should be a celebration of the future and the imagination so old-fashioned and same ol', same ol'?

Don't get me wrong — when Meredith said she'd give me a ticket if I could cover a screening this weekend, I was thrilled and delighted, and I had a good time. And I appreciate that some of what does drive me nuts about Comic Con has everything to do with me and nothing to do with it: I burned out on festival concerts at least half a decade ago, strip clubs discomfit me unless I'm pretty intoxicated, and while I am a capitalist, the Mall of America makes me feel guilty about it. And with its crowds and $4 bottles of soda, paid models and attendees in slinky costumes getting ogled by grubby dudes, and yards upon yards of questionably utile merchandise, your average SF con replicates all three of those places rather aptly.

But, y'know, it's OK that it's not exactly my bag. Obviously, based on the billions (slight exaggeration) of people crammed into half of the Javits Center with me, it is many other folks'. Nonetheless, I think the question broached above is worth asking. Because it seems to me like, if cons like this weekend's have been around for almost four decades now (the San Diego Comic-Con started in 1970), they sure haven't changed much:

• There are booths, with things at them. People sit behind the tables at the booths, or stand in front of them.

• They generally give away cheap schwag, like flimsy introductory comics and pins and maybe (if they're going all out) DVDs or pens; none of it is exceptional or really useful beyond five minutes of entertainment value. I would be sincerely surprised if a solid 90 percent of the schwag didn't end up in a landfill or (I hope) recycling facility within a week.

• And of course, there are boobs. Everywhere. Except in the places where there is already ass instead — girl ass, that is, naturally. I don't wanna sound like a sensitive ponytail man — and Lord knows I have built my commenting career here on a steady diet of seventh-grade sex jokes — but whatever our individual opinions about it are, it seems to me only fair to acknowledge that your average con's depiction of sexuality is more or less one-sided and, while hardly on the level of most Internet reality porn, leans closer to "exploitative" than to "healthily lusty." That we may be inured to it at this point doesn't make it less true.

So now that some of you are annoyed enough to stop looking at Internet reality porn to log in and comment (and I know your pain — I had to do the same thing to get this thing written), let me suggest some things I think would be cool to see at cons of the future — so that they'd really be more like Cons of the Future:

1) Thinking beyond the booth. Sure, you may need someplace to set up your stuff, and you may not have the money to trick it out, but why leave yourself subject to capricious Fate and whomever she happens to send walking by? If I were trying to get noticed in a giant room full of people dressed as everything from Norse gods to extragalactic holy men, the last thing I'd do is sit still. I'd have a crew out on the floor, and not just passing out flyers. They'd be handing out food or toys or carrying a video camera and doing quick Q&As — anything to get someone's attention — and then passing out a flyer.

2) Awesome (cheap) technology. Better still, what if you passed out a bunch of gadgets like those buzzy remotes that restaurants use to tell you your table is ready, marked with your booth location? And then signaled the people carrying them, either individually, in small groups, or — for an awesome effect — all at once, to show up for a kickass presentation or giveaway? There'd be some overhead, but if you pulled it off, you'd make an impression. And even if that wasn't doable, heck, instead of a crappy poster, give out a few branded USB thumb-drive key chains with something fun on them — at least those'll get used for a lot longer than a week.

3) Live entertainment. The SF-and-fantasy crowd is full of people who are incredibly creative, even if they don't have the money to make a summer blockbuster themselves. How tough would it be to put on short plays throughout the day? Or a Spock Vs. Q–style dialogue? Or story readings, or poetry slams, or interpretive dances, or mini concerts, or video confessions?

4) Live interactive entertainment. And for that matter, since we can play games while we're browsing the Web, why shouldn't we be able to play games while we're browsing the stalls? Some creative wizard should come up with a live-action-role-playing-style game you can play and score points at — and even meet new people during — while you buy trade paperbacks and attend panels.

5) More sexy dudes. There. I said it. Everyone's always paying lip service to how SF ought to be more accommodating to people who aren't heterosexual men, but since the aforementioned boobs aren't going anywhere, let's at least balance them out with more testosterone than a blue evil He-Man android statue. And they don't have to be Fabio clones — actually, they probably shouldn't be. Someone should hire a few buff tan dudes who look like trainers at expensive health clubs, strap leather baldrics on 'em, and see what kind of response they get.

Commenter Moff's real name is Josh Wimmer, and he can usually be found at scribblescribblescribble.com/blog.

There is a lot of speculation about how you actually ended up on the island again with the time loop and the helicopter and the freighter not showing up again. Did the writers try to explain that to you?

Well that's one of the question I had for them when I saw them last week. Because there are so many different ways it could have happened, I wanted to know the scoop. This is actually the first time I'm talking about this. But, I was carried with the island through time. I was blown off the ship and I was floating on my own. But I was within the radius of the island's time travel abilities. So I went with the island. I was always in the water and I time traveled with them.

So the island didn't select you over the people in the helicopter? You were in the radius.

I was in the radius, but that's a good question though.

During yesterday's Cryptic panel, we got a sneak peak at the highly-anticipated Star Trek Online MMO game. This absolutely gorgeous-looking game is set in the year 2409, 30 years past the events of the ST:TNG film "Nemesis." Klingon compromises have fallen apart, with the Klingon Empire on the verge of all-out war. There will also be "an ancient threat from the past." You'll be able to play as either a Starfleet officer or as a member of the Klingon Defense, with both choices at Captain rank. Yes, you will be a Captain of your own starship. You'll be able to select your bridge crew and command them, as well as pilot the ship yourself.

Early on you'll choose your career path — either tactical, engineering or science-based. But the game seeks to bring to the fore what the creators feel to be the fundamentals of Star Trek: space, shipboard and ground exploration. Gameplay will be focused on beaming down to planets for a variety of missions, mastering shipboard concerns and, of course, exploring the final frontier.

You'll be able to have "total customization" of your own alien races, with the ability to modify characters down to the slightest skin-textures and features. While you'll also be able to choose from all of the "known and loved Trek races" to play, if you've ever wanted to father your own alien species, this will be your chance. The brief glimpses and stills we were given of the actual game look extraordinary. The graphics are detailed, rich and look better than the space scenes in most movies. We got to see the character-design elements in action, and the level of detail will please even the most exacting of fans.

After the panel, I asked game producer Craig Zinkievich whether we could expect a high level of social interaction to be available between players along with missions and character-building. He confirmed that character interaction would be very present in the game — just as it is in the Star Trek universe — with sites like space stations offering places to congregate. "And pleasure planets?" I suggested, to which he laughed and skirted the issue — but implied that it could be a possibility, and definitely isn't ruled out. See you all on Risa?