IDW's official PR for Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez' 32 page first issue goes a little something like this:

Sam Lesser may be dead and gone, but Dodge still has uses for him, and in the first chill days of October, will make contact with him again. The dead know things the living may not, and Sam's restless spirit has had time to discover the thing Dodge wants to know most of all... where to find the key to the black door. The third storyline in the Eisner-nominated series begins here!

Locke & Key: Crown Of Shadows #1 is released this week.

Update: So it seems the episode we previewed was in fact next Sunday's episode — not the premiere. Hopefully, we'll get more details on what's happened since last season' finale in the premiere.

The Venture Bros returns Sunday with an episode featuring that rainbow-wearing superhero Captain Sunshine. Don't remember Captain Sunshine? The Monarch mentioned him a while back when he was in prison:

You've sent the charred remains of Wonder Boy to his beloved Captain Sunshine?

Needless to say, Captain Sunshine is still holding a grudge. But he'll get distracted from any revenge attempts as soon as he gets entangled with the Venture family.

This Sunday's premiere is at once satisfying and exceedingly frustrating. Superman and Batman have been parodied to death, but Captain Sunshine manages to be a surprising combination of the two with a twist of pure Venture Bros. wrongness. Just when you think you've anticipated the brand of jokes coming, the writers run it a tiny bit farther over the line. So why is it frustrating? For those of us chomping at the bit to see the fallout from last season's finale, we're going to be mostly kept waiting. Yes, we do find out who Rusty's new bodyguard is (although I'm not sure it's someone who will last the whole season). Otherwise, we mostly get little nods to the changes from last season. Yes, the clones have been destroyed and Hank's hair is a little longer, Number 21 is taking even worse care of himself than usual, and the Cocoon is still pretty much a wreck, but the main focus is the stand-alone plot. It looks like the creators are going to be slowly dropping breadcrumbs for a while until they lead us to the bigger answers. Of course, gradually evolving mythology is one of the hallmarks of The Venture Bros., but it's been well over a year since we've had any new Venture action, and I've gotten impatient.

But I'll take what I can get, and what I can get is a quintessential episode with a nice blend of new faces and old standbys. Plus, the episode sets up one of the weirder subplots teased in the trailer. And even if there are still a lot of questions left unanswered, at least we can look forward to some regular Venturing for a while.

The fourth season premiere of The Venture Bros. airs Sunday, October 18th at midnight on Adult Swim.

Illustrated by Stephen Thompson, the 48 page one-shot is released tomorrow by IDW.

IDW's official solicitation for the project goes a little something like this:

Master of Horror Clive Barker offers up an all-new, standalone tale presented in chilling 3-D and featuring the art of Eisner-nominated artist Gabriel Rodriguez (Locke & Key)! When celebrated architect Harold Engle first glimpses the small cloud of darkness inside a glittering, priceless diamond, he can't possibly be aware of the terrible plague contained within. "Seduth" follows Engle on a surreal journey through murder and madness to the very heart of existence and a terrible, impossible choice-to unravel the very fabric of the world, or to save it?

Seduth 3-D is released on Wednesday.

Let's go through our favorite subsubsubplots and grade them, shall we? We've also got a tasty batch of preview clips for you below.

RAMPANT LESBIANISM:

So how was The Kiss? On a scale of one to ultra-smokin, I would give it a "meh." More exciting than the kiss, which I'll discuss in granular detail in my recap on Tuesday, is the whole lesbotic sorority subplot that leads up to the kiss. Did you know there is such a thing as sorority speed dating night for new pledges? Apparently it's what all those normal girls were doing when I was in college smoking dope and having bisexual threesomes. Now you can find out all about what happens when sorority girls speed date each other on Heroes! I utterly loved the sorority subsubsubplot, especially because it introduces a new face whom you might know from Veronica Mars!

NYLAR:

At the end of this week's episode, Nylar had been shot and buried alive by an evil society mom getting revenge on Mama Petrelli. When he emerges from the grave, he's lost his memory. So how does this subsubsubplot go? Not very well. There is a lot of acting going on, which makes you yearn for all those times when poor Zachary Quinto actually has good lines - you know, like when he's in a Star Trek movie. Also, how many freakin times have we seen Sylar rediscover his powers after some drugging or memory loss or therapy or whatever. Jeezus. On a scale of one to powertastic, I would give the Nylar subsubsubplot a grunt.

RAINBOW BRIGHT LADY:

Emma the deaf lady who sees pretty colors when children sing is back, and she and Peter are finally making a bad CGI connection! The less said about this the better. Too many scenes of floaty colors and pianos. On a scale of one to rainbow, I give this subsubsubplot a black tank top from Hot Topic.

DIRT-POWERED CARNIVAL:

This subsubsubplot makes me sad because I feel like Samuel the dirt-power guy could actually have been cool in some alternate universe where Heroes has coherent characterization and rich dialog. Next week you'll discover that dirt powers are basically everything. Join me in complete confusion as to how the hell "controlling dirt" also means you can do all the other stuff Samuel does. There is some cool stuff where we meet more of the carnival mutants, and find out more about how the Carnival itself works. On a scale of one to carnivalesque, I give this subsubsubplot a Suicide Girls tattoo.

According toLA Times over 100 Imax 3D theaters will be screening 16 minutes from James Cameron's new alien epic. There will be two screenings on Friday the 21st of August, at 6 and 6:30 PM.

And if you were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the alien woodland people swinging from the trees at Comic Con, you still don't want to miss this preview as there will be new footage screened on that Friday.

Tickets will be available at the Avatar Movie site at 12:00 PM PST in a first come first serve basis, so ready your clicking fingers.

The full film itself won't be released until Dec. 18.

In a nutshell, this movie is exactly what it's being labeled as, A Diablo Cody Horror film. One girl's hot, the other is adorably awkward and relatable, the side characters are semi-intersting, there's an adorable puberty-stricken boyfriend, we get emo jokes at hipsters' expenses (they don't know they're laughing at themselves) and of course the extra-glib talky talk that defines a Diablo Cody movie.

It's becoming apparent that cheeseball dialog gleaned from the slang of fake teenage tongues are to Diablo Cody what sunsets and sepia tones are to Michael Bay. You know you're going to get it, no matter what you do or how much you protest. So you're either on for the ride, or get the heck off. If you can listen to Megan Fox say:

"You're totally Jell-O, you're lime green Jell-O and you can't even admit it to yourself,"

to her best friend's jealous boyfriend without digging your pencil into the side of your leg just to feel a different type of pain, then you can continue on the Diablo horror path knowing (and possibly enjoying) what you're getting. At its heart, this movie will be a litmus test for pure Cody fans — those that can hack it through the slutty girl from High School, complaining that she couldn't go to Flag's the day after losing her back door virginity and having to sit on a bag of iced peas for a day. Megan is the girl who says such things, while her blonde, innocent buddy Needy Lesnicky, played by Amanda Seyfried, is the "straight man" victim of the horror plot.

The film begins with a over-the-top-slutty Megan Fox, as Jennifer Check, beckoning her bestie away from a night out with her boyfriend to the local shit-hole pub. The place is full of students, locals, and people Jennifer has fucked or at least thought about fucking. Oh yeah, they say fuck...a lot, because you know teenagers and their swear words. In comparison when Needy gets super scared she blurts out replacement curse words "cheese fries," honest to blog.

Anyway, at said crap watering hole, Jennifer decides that they are going to sleep with the totally hot band that just so happens to be playing their terrible little town. The band is fronted by a side neck-tattooed, eyeliner smudged intentionally stereotyped Nikolai Wolf, (Adam Brody). The Megan and Adam back-and-forth was actually the cutest part of the footage we saw — say what you will about Fox's acting talents, she's learned the art of comedic timing. "Your....band....is....(ceiling eyes)...super good." I'm not sure if it was intentional, but I laughed.

So Jennifer has her heart set on becoming the next groupie, and runs off to bring back some 9/11 red, white and blue tribute shots served up by the bartender, Ms. Cody herself (irony or somethin' har har). Adam Brody then launches into a five-minute-long song that sets the bar on fire and mesmerizes young Jennifer. While the song was, for all intents and purposes, "nice," I have no doubt that it will now be a colossal hit, racing up the itunes charts and Adam Brody's lip sync video will no doubt be played over and over and over again on the youtubes.

We slowly discover that the Adam Brody band wants to get its mitts on Jennifer's body because they think she's a virgin (and as we discover, if they kill a virgin their band will continue down its path towards fame). But the hitch in the road for the next Panic At The Disco, that we all discover after Jennifer so sweetly tells us that she'd like to sex up the local Indian student because she's always wanted to sleep with a sea cucumber, Jennifer ain't no virgin. Thus, murdering her in this ritual turns her into a boy-eating demon (none of which we saw in this screening). We're left to assume most of this, when Jennifer appears in Needy's home covered in blood and feasting on her Mother's old Boston Market chicken. This is when it gets good. Jennifer spews out black vomit from the chicken, screams like a banshee and throws her best friend sexually up against the wall.

Jennifer is truly at her best when she's bad. I have to say, once I got over the initial Cody shock, I really wanted to continue watching this film. I like Jennifer all messed up, with her smile coated in fresh blood. I want to see her realize her demonic goal, to seduce and kill all the bad boys in her town, but not before the girl-on-girl kissing scene that Cody promised. And not because it's pervy, but because it's a parody or silly homage to horror — so they know you know it's stupid to have girls kissing in a flick, they just want you to know they know, DIABLO!

Banter aside, it looks like good old fashioned fun that comes complete with a soundtrack that will go out of style in three to two months.

Firs off, go ahead and breathe a sigh of relief — the modern day Imagi recreation is very close to the Tezuka Astro Boy we know and love. The feel, look, attitude and even his robot smile all remain in the Tezuka wheelhouse. Imagi Studios went to great lengths to make sure that it stayed that way throughout the film, they even brought in Tezuka's son to keep them all in line.

Their efforts weren't in vain: the shiny, robot-heavy futuristic floating city of Metro City (Earth itself being too dirty for any civilized folk to inhabit) is full of charm and style. The whole place practically glitters, it looks so clean and new, but the warmth that is little Astro Boy is still there. He still struggles with acceptance in this world, his loveless relationship with his maker and father Dr. Tenma (voiced by Nic Cage) and finding a place where he belongs.

At the special preview show for Astro Boy, director David Bowers took us through a host of clips detailing decisions made by the international production, which had studios both in America and in Japan.

The first clip showed the "birth" of Astro Boy. A somber Dr. Tenma, channeling his inner mad scientist, is hell bent on bringing his recently deceased son back to life. All that remains of his little boy is a red baseball cap. But that's okay, because the Ministry of Science has the know-how on how to extract human memories from one strand of hair. He scrolls through blueprints and crafts together a body. The round Dr. Elefun appears (voiced by Bill Nighy) with the all important blue-core energy. The glowing matter is what brings the little robot to life, but as with all things that contain such great power there's a down side — but more on that later. Lights flash electricity is shot out in a Dr. Frankenstein-esque manner and the little boy comes to life, to the mesmerized delight of Dr. Tenma.

The entire creation moment was fantastic, but it raised the only concern I have for this picture. Is Nic Cage too familiar? Granted, Cage is a huge fan of Astro Boy, and at the meeting Bowers explained how Cage had tried to bring a live-action Astro to life, once upon a time, but still something about his voice removed me from Tenma. Ah well, it's a small complaint, that I'm sure will be cast aside after you view the movie longer than a few short minutes — here's hoping, at least.

The next clip showed the problem with robot and human assimilation. Sadly once Tenma brings the little Astro home he doesn't act exactly like his dead son. This makes Tenma angry, and he sends him to his room debating on whether or not to throw him out forever, since he's just a constant reminder of his former kid. Little Astro sits on his bed, totally unaware that he's a robot and wonders why his father no longer loves him. But while he's moping a little pair of worker bots come to his window, Mr. Squirt and SQUEEGEE, and guess what they do? The two little bots talk amongst themselves in their secret robot language, and all of a sudden little Astro realizes he too can speak the robot lingo. And soon takes off on a rocket boot self discovery flight pattern, where he punches right through a mountain.

The robots in this picture are brilliant, especially the hap-hazard creations from Ham Egg (Nathan Lane's Oliver Twist Fagin like character). They allow for a lot of creativity and exploration as to how far the science has grown, plus I love robots that have one particular job, like Mr. Squirt.

As we mentioned before, the blue core power source presents a problem for the wee robotic wonder. The government, represented by the evil tongued Donald Sutherland's President Stone, craves the blue bit of energy and will stop at nothing to get it. Even if that means deploying a whole fleet of flying soldiers, in futuristic flying machines. The army blasts Astro with their ammo trying to get his gears to go kaput, so they can deliver the goods to their leader. Who, in turn, builds an even bigger Peace Keeper Robot (first picture) who does anything but keep the peace. Instead the giant beast absorbs power, growing stronger and stronger and in turn, wrecks havoc on the floating city.

In the end it looks like it's up to Astro and his band of dirty Earth-bound misfit friends and their trash-can dog to save the day from the giant robot.

Bottom line: the movie is about more than just cute robots and funny characters. The few clips we viewed were polished to perfection, and the original feel of Tezuka's series is intact. I really hope American kids learn to embrace this character because he's got the rocket boot-strappy know-how of a great hero. Plus who doesn't love that hair? So far so good, we can't wait to see more.

The full trailer will be released in September but you can see more clips next week if you'll be at San Diego Comic Con on Thursday in room 6BCF.

Tonight's episode, "Menace of the Conqueror Caveman!", brings the 25th century's Booster Gold back to our 21st century, just in time to watch immortal caveman Vandal Savage devolve the citizens of Gotham City into cavemen soldiers for his command. And if that's not what you want from your superheroes, I don't know how to help you. And here are a couple more clips:

That not enough excitement for you? How about the first appearance of Robin on Brave And The Bold, in the May 22 episode, "The Color Of Revenge"?

Batman: The Brave And The Bold airs on Cartoon Network tonight at 8:30.

The issue features the third chapter in the current Rise of the Olympian storyline that, if rumors are to be believed, will see Wonder Woman follow Batman and Superman in being replaced... but, in her case, by a man. Here's hoping he'll wear the same outfit.

Wonder Woman #28 hits stores this Wednesday.

Wonder Woman #28 [DC Comics]

There's an obvious cheese factor here to contend with - the echoey voiceover goes on for far too long, and the battle for the soul of a little white girl is somewhat played out. Despite that, there's something really creative and fun about Ink. Director Jamin Winans is no stranger to the genre: His previous film Spin was about a time-traveling DJ. A big part of what makes Ink enticing is the breathtaking concept design, which is a combination of Matrix-style surrealism and Neverwhere's odd realism. Also, it's hard not to like the idea of a gang of good dreamers fighting it out with nightmares on the city streets.

Ink [via Double Edge Films]

While I've previously called Gemini a poor-man's Blade Runner, after watching the first two episodes, it looks like the only thing it takes from that sci-fi classic is the premise. Korda is a military cyborg (known as a SIM) that was built in secret with a handful of others. After fighting for his country, he and a bunch of other man-bots go AWOL. Korda shacks up with NYC detective Diaz... which is exactly where Gemini begins.

The Gemini story is told entirely from the point of view of Diaz, who's played by Dawson. Each episode is a series of video "transmissions" sent from Diaz's PDA to an unknown recipient, and with this PDA as almost the cornerstone of the project, whether people will get annoyed with the letter style story-telling completely rests on their believing in this "near-future" PDA device.

Her first transmission puts the couple in Paris, where - surprise! - Korda has popped the question, but streetwise Diaz has second thoughts. Why? Maybe because she lied to him about being a cop, and when Korda got naked and surprised her with flowers, she almost shot his head off. So she had to tell him about being an undercover police officer, and Korda then told her that he had a pacemaker. She proceeds to tell her unknown friend how much that freaked her out but, I'm sorry, but I think being a secret cop would trump that particular argument on the weirdness scale.

But that's not important, because they're in love and in Paris... which you can tell because of the cheesy background on her PDA (which I hope they ease up on in the future). But it's not all cheese and wine in France, sadly; Diaz gets the feeling that they are being stalked, and then a lot of strange things start to happen to her boytoy, like having seizures and then trying to strangle her.

Anywho, Diaz starts to freak out and pick up on little clues to Korda's secret lifestyle, because, you know, she's a cop and all. Which is where the first two episodes end. It's mostly background work to give you a feel for each character, but already you can start to see where they will be tying in the ARG/video game component. For example, when Diaz finds yellow goo in the bath after Korda is finished using it, she holds it up to the screen. Immediately the PDA begins to analyze the bio-materials of the goo. Breaking down clues like the goo will be one of the many mysteries you get to crack in the ARG, according to Executive Producer Brent Friedman.

Friedman, who is writing and producing with Electric Farm, explained that each property and story is going to open up different opportunities for how you can interact with Gemini. After they debut the first four episodes (two next week, and another two the following week), the ARG begins on Friday the 29th. In the game, audience members, "can become a Gemini Agent," according to Friedman, "so you can get recruited and face the same moral choices [as the characters]. When you join Gemini Division through the ARG, you get your own PDA [and] the longer you spend on the site and on your PDA, you get widget upgrades. So it enhances your experience. We want to be able to replicate the way Anna uses her PDA on the show. You're going to be sent on investigatory missions that will ask you to find different things that will lead you to different sites."

Gemini isn't entirely new territory for Electric Farm. Before Gemini, they released Afterworld, the scifi post-apocalyptic YouTube series that had a small but loyal cult following. But this new NBC webseries is a much larger undertaking - especially when you add the famous leading lady, embedded product placement, mobile video game, and planned comic book.

After the first two premiere weeks of Gemini new episodes will be released Mon through Thursday (around 50 episodes are planned for the season) and every Friday the ARG will be updated. There's original material filmed just for the ARG as well, so you'll be able to explore deeper into the Gemini world.

While I commend NBC for making better web-product than the awful Heroes mailman drek, it's doing to be interesting to see how this plays out. It very well could be the future of television. And with the rise in video game success it wouldn't be a colossal surprise if ARGs became the new way to watch original material. As for the series itself, it's hard to say if it's entertaining. The first two clips felt like filler, and if this is what they're trying to sell the world on, they may want to throw in a little more drama besides Nick Korda's almost-naked surprise. It's wonderful having good actors carry the weight of the storytelling on their shoulders, but right now it's all sizzle and no steak, and in order for something like this to really explode, I fear they should have given the viewers a little bit more to chew on.

The series premieres tomorrow.

Lots of Gross, Cool Pseudo-Science
Though our hero Olivia points out in this scene (above) that she's not dealing with "pseudo-science," but rather "fringe science," I think we're mincing words here. Nobody wanted to name the show Pseudo, so they came up with something edgier. I love this list of "sciences" in an "area called fringe science" that Olivia spouts off as she tells soon-to-be-protagonist Joshua "Dawson's Creek" Jackson all about his mad doctor dad and his experiments. It's pretty much a here's-what's-coming sign for the entire show. So get ready for some invisibility, mutation, astral projection, resurrection, etc. This means hours of amusement for people who understand real science (I couldn't stop laughing when Olivia did a search online for "dissolve + flesh"), as well as a renewed sense of purpose for people who have missed the X-Files' spooky blend of government conspiracy and para-scientific bullshit that basically boiled down to REALLY COOL ALIEN STUFF.

In the pilot episode of Fringe, I can guarantee that you will get to see no fewer than three charmingly improbable pieces of "fringe science," one of which involves somebody taking a giant dose of Ketamine mixed with LSD and lying in a sensory deprivation tank. (Hello, Altered States?)

Add Alias Intelligence Ninja, Then Sift in Some Acid-Fueled Freakery from Lost. Stir.
Inevitably, people are going to compare Fringe to X-Files, and with good reason. But I think it's much closer to being a perfect blend of two previous Abrams projects: Alias and Lost. Olivia is practically a mirror-image of Sydney from Alias — she's got the smart-newbie thing going on, as well as the hot babe in a ponytail look. Though Sydney could be an annoying character, she was likable because she was a total ninja as well as being vulnerable. Like Sydney, Olivia is clearly going to be a smartypants rule-breaker who gets some hot spy-on-spy lovin' when she can manage to overcome her trust issues.

Here's the really good news for people who enjoy Lost's what-the-fuck quality but are sick of mysteries wrapped in enigmas swaddled in conspiracies painted over with secrets. Fringe is seemingly built to be episodic. Yes, there will be an overarching mystery — probably for the whole first season — involving the "pattern" and a Genentech-esque company called Massive Dynamics. There's some kind of conspiracy, a bunch of weird "turn you into a skeleton" experiments, and Olivia and her scooby gang have to figure it out. But each week promises to solve at least one mystery, or at least if the pilot is any indication it will. Hopefully, Abrams has finally found a format where he can give us a lot of standalone episodes without sacrificing those epic, Byzantine plot arcs he loves so much.

Suddenly DHS Is Totally Awesome
Do not expect any form of realism from Fringe whatsoever — not scientifically, and not in terms of how spy shit actually works. In the pilot episode, there are a series of rapid-fire discussions of how the people involved in the "incident" Olivia is investigating are from the CIA, DHS, and the FBI. Plus local police. Olivia is a "liason" of some nebulous description, which basically means that one week she's with DHS and the next she's with the Feds or SD-6 or SHIELD. Most of the pilot, however, focused on DHS, which is probably because most people have no idea what the hell the DHS does, except for maybe wave the USA-Patriot Act around a lot. And indeed, there is some waving of the USA-Patriot Act, which apparently has the power to get you into insane asylums to interview mad scientists.

It's Not Just a Government Conspiracy — It's a Corporate Conspiracy
In the post-government terrorist era, nobody would really believe that the US could muster up enough of a spy conspiracy to satisfy TV fans week after week. So Fringe adds corporate conspiracies on top of its blooming FBI/DHS potential conspiracy. Olivia is investigating a runaway chemical compound that reduces everybody to jelly. Turns out that the elder mad scientist in her scooby gang knows how it works, and he also worked on it with the elusive, Craig Venter-esque zillionaire who runs Massive Dynamics. (A road sign helpfully tells us that Massive Dynamics "does everything," but in the episode they mostly do creepy things with genetics and cool things with bionic arms.) Somehow Massive Dynamics is working with the FBI or maybe some other even more shadowy government agency. But the point is that the conspiracy stretches beyond the spies and into the crazy terrain of Big Science. I can't wait for Fringe to do an episode about some Google-esque company that is injecting evil code into the astral plane.

Bottom Line: The pilot was creepy, cool, and kind of gross. The scooby gang could use some work: Do we really need to have the irritating Frasier-esque banter between rebel scientist son and crusty old mad scientist dad? Also there is an unexpected and wonderful use of sans-serif fonts. Really awesome.

What was most interesting about the episode was watching the four new cylon deal with discovering that they are not human. As we learned at the end of season 3, some of the most unlikely members of the crew have turned out to be skinjobs.

The newly-revealed Cylons include Tigh, the ship's XO, who was tortured by the Cylons on New Caprica so brutally that he lost an eye. And there's Anders, Starbuck's ex, who was leading the human resistance against the Cylons on Caprica when Starbuck rescued him. Then there's Chief Tyrol, whose discovery that he's got toaster in him means he's also got a hybrid baby. Almost as an afterthought, there's Foster, the president's aide. Each plays a pivotal role on the ship, and each could easily kill the Admiral or President if "activated" from afar by the Cylons.

There's a lot of soul-searching among these Cylons, as they wonder if their memories are implanted lies and what it means to find out they aren't who they think they are. Will they be activated? Can they be sure they're in control of their actions? Things get especially interesting when Starbuck returns in a cloud of suspicion — she thinks she's been gone for a few hours, and the rest of the fleet know she's been gone for months and suspect her of being a Cylon or at least a spy for them. In a great moment, Anders tries to comfort her — and Starbuck, in her usual way, is a total dick about it. Yup, our beloved crew is back.

When they're not fighting Cylons, the humans are dealing with a new antagonist in their midst. Baltar goes all Jesus on everybody after being adopted by a strange band of nubile lady cultists. This is where the season's yuck factor comes in, and no surprise that Baltar is all over it. Will he become a creepy, fake-ass messiah to the downtrodden of the ship, willing to pretend to be anything they want as long as they give him protection, food, and sex? Or is he really starting to believe in his own godlike power, and to worship the Cylons' one god?

While it certainly wasn't the best episode of BSG I've seen, it was still a strong one. Most important, it set up some genuinely compelling tensions that will animate the final season as we come closer and closer to Earth. I like a show that can kick some toaster ass, and still find time to worry about the nature of human identity. And this episode does all that and more. Welcome back, BSG. We missed you.

What pleases about BSG, for a mainstream audience not necessarily inclined to freak out over spaceships, is the careful way the show's creators David Eick and Ronald Moore have created an entire political system for the characters to inhabit. We aren't just motoring from battle to battle. Instead, we watch as the human president fights with political pretenders and the military for power over the few thousand people left after the Cylon attack. There are press conferences and elections, worker strikes and Cylon sympathizers. The humans even become suicide bombers at one point.

This isn't a show that gives us a simple, Star Wars-style good vs. evil fairy tale. Everyone, even the steely Cylon, are ambivalent and ethically fungible. With next season concluding the epic tale of the human and Cylon battle to reach Earth and colonize it first, the action is sure to be intense. But don't expect the meaty political allegory to fall by the wayside. Things are just starting to get interesting.

We'll be watching characters dealing with a legal battle over who is to blame for last season's witchhunts, where accused Cylon collaborators were summarily executed without trial. And the Cylons have started having children with humans, raising the question of whether the us vs. them, human vs. machine binary really makes sense at all.

It's possible that what allows BSG to be so overtly political, complete with subplots about suicide bombing, is precisely the fact that it's set in a science fictional world. There is a narrative comfort zone for audiences: We don't have to worry that what we're watching is about ourselves because it takes place in a fantasy world. And yet there's no mistaking the fact that the characters in BSG are us. And I don't just mean the humans. We are the Cylon too.

The new season of BSG starts airing Friday, April 4 on the Sci Fi Channel.

FRIDAY

1:30 Battlestar Galactica panel with Richard Hatch
Who doesn't love Richard Hatch? Certainly not the man himself.

2:00 Spotlight on Astro City
Meet Kurt Busiek and Brent Anderson, writer and artist of this awesome indie comic.

4:00 Spotlight on Darwyn Cooke
Hear the latest from the writer/artist behind DC: The New Frontier.

5:00 DC Nation
This is when DC makes all its announcements for what's coming up next for the oldest comic book publisher around. Graeme warns, "This might be boring."

5:30 Boom Studios
The scoop on what Boom is up to.

5:15 Universal Studios movie preview blah blah MEET KRISTIN BELL
Seriously we don't know or care what this dumb movie is. But KRISTIN BELL! We only refer to her in all caps, OK?

6:15 Sneak Peek at Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D with Brendan Fraser
OK — you've got a goofy movie, you've got 3D, you've got Brendan Fraser. Let's all ask about that cool cell phone reception at the center of the Earth.

7:00 Sneak Peek of Appleseed Ex Machina Bioroids and cyborgs in love. Annalee says, "Hellz yeah!"

SATURDAY

12: Comic Book Arts Session with Douglas Wolk
Wolk, author of the terrific book Reading Comics, gets all smartypants on you by talking about the ways comics could become the new "novel of ideas."

1:30 DC U Countdown to Crisis, followed by Spider-Man panel at 3:00 in the same room
"This could get really weird — apparently there was some kind of incident with the Spider-Man fans last year," says Graeme.

1:30 Making an R2D2
We're gonna make one. Oh yes. We will.

2:00 X-Files preview.
With special guests Gillian Anderson and that guy from Red Shoe Diaries.

3:00 Comic Book Legal Defense Fund's live art jam
Jim Lee and Terry Moore drawing shit live on stage while you watch. Hellz yeah.

3:30 Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan
Beloved creators Wood and Cloonan talk about their work and share an "exclusive announcement."

4:00 Iron Man sneak peek
We are hoping to hurl some iron underwear on stage.

4:00 Hang out with J. Michael Straczynski
He's written Spider-Man; he's written World War Z (the movie); and he wears a cool black hat.

5:00 Inside LucasFilm
Hello? Star Wars? Duh we're going to this.

5:00 Vertigo
The latest from Vertigo, publishers of pretty much every cool comic book we read this year.

5:00 Sneak Peek: Starship Troopers

5:30 Sneak Peek: Gabriel

8-11 PARTY WITH IO9!!
io9 co-sponsors a party with Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and Last Gasp. Ten bucks at the door — all proceeds go to CBLDF's fight for free speech in the world of comics. Come out, say hi, get drunk with us!

SUNDAY

11:30 Japanese Superheroes Now!
Giant monsters will be discussed. Need we say more?

1:00 Jericho Sneak Peek

1:00 WildStorm: Revelations Revealed!
Catch up with the publishers of Astro City, and chit-chat with Jim Lee, editorial director. Apparently a revelation will be revealed. Graeme is really amped.

2:30 Terminator Sneak Peek
Charlie is freaking out about this. In a good way.

3:30 Justice League: The New Frontier (encore sneak peek)
Encore sneak for people who did things like party on Saturday night instead of going to Justice League!

Picture above by the awesome Scott Beale, taken at last year's WonderCon.

First off, ignore the (cool-looking) cover featuring Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker and two other Jedi ready for action; that scene happens only as psychic dream in the opening pages of the book (see below) - the majority of this opener to the year-long story is all about setting the scene and introducing readers to characters and concepts that don't come from the movies. Luckily for "Expanded Universe" virgins like myself, it all follows well-known Lucas formulas pretty well, including a annoying comedy sidekick for the hero: Having the plot revolve around a prophecy makes a lot of sense, considering the movies' reliance on prophecies about balancing the force and all, but there's also an element of Indiana Jones in the way that our heroes are questing after an artifact that gets found by the bad guys first. Sure, there aren't any Sith to give us hot lightsaber action in this first part (Replacement zombie-like aliens the Mandalorians feels a little too generic and dull, right now), but it all zips by fast enough for you not to care: The dialogue is better than at least, oh, five of the movies - writer John Jackson Miller gets his derring-do on without the humorlessness of the last three movies - and the art strikes the right note of being cartoony but not distractingly so.

Dark Horse know what they're doing with their movie and TV comics - They're the ones behind Joss Whedon's awesome Buffy comics - and this is a pretty good launch for what could be a fun story for both Star Wars obsessives and those who just like reading about people shooting each other in space. After four issues of Knights Of The Old Republic, the story crosses into companion title Dark Times (set just after Revenge of the Sith) for two issues, then original trilogy-era Rebellion for two, before ending in Star Wars: Legacy - starring the descendants of Luke, Leia and Han - at the end of the year. If nothing else, you know you want to pick up the ones with 1980s Empire Strikes Back-era jumpsuit Luke, right...?

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic #25 - Vector part 1 [Dark Horse.com]