If you are a process junkie, then the boxset is made for you; along with a lovely booklet full of production sketches, each episode has an additional mini-documentary with interviews from the crew involved, as well as seven episodes with new material added for "Director's Cut" editions (Spoiler: Han doesn't shoot first in any of them). More to the point, just rewatching the series shows how the show has evolved as everyone learns what they can, and can't, get away with; I watched the first few episodes in the set after watching "Landing At Point Rain," the most recent episode of the second season, and the difference is amazing - and, for a second, somewhat damning to the first season in comparison ("Point Rain" featured not just some wonderfully choreographed battle sequences that offered a fluidity and grace that the earlier animation lacked, it was also surprisingly brutal in tone - The clones and Jedi used flamethrowers on their alien opponents and you saw them burning to death, which really leaves the earliest episodes of the show, uncertain about the tone just yet, looking anemic). But to concentrate on how far the show's come is to miss the point, and the fun, of the first season.

Clone Wars season one was full of trial and error, yes, but even when things didn't work, they're still worth watching - even moreso on DVD, when the bad taste of the Jar-Jar-centric "Bombad Jedi" is quickly washed away by the double bill of "Cloak of Darkness" and "Lair of Grievous," both of which move more towards the self-assured tone of the movies. The show's mini-arcs make more sense when viewed together, as well (And episodes like "Storm Over Ryloth," "Innocents of Ryloth" and "Liberty on Ryloth" work better than the feature that introduced the series in the first place). But as much as the writing shifts and grows in quality and confidence throughout the series - Just compare the Ryloth episodes to "Ambush" to see what I mean - so, in a much more subtle way, do the visuals.

Never less than impressive, even from the get-go (Just look at some of the textures used! Or the lighting! Man, it's good stuff), the animators nonetheless manage to tighten things all the way throughout the season by, ironically, loosening up: The "acting" by the characters - especially the facial movements - gets more natural as the show goes on, making it easier to empathize with the characters despite (because of) their impressive and intentional cartoony quality (Again, this is something that's all the more obvious looking at newer episodes like "Point Rain," where Anakin has some great subtle smirking going on, adding to his "Yeah, you're a hero now but you're going to end up Darth Vader because of that assholishness, buddy" thing).

But even outside of the "Watch the show improve" aspect that made the boxset for me - I couldn't help it, I'd seen the shows before - there's a lot to like about The Complete Season One; yes, some of the episodes (Ahem, "Bombad Jedi") are clunkers, but the good outweigh the bad, and there's something to like in all of them. The bonus features, as I've said before, are worth watching (Especially the "Jedi Temple" extras, which I think are BluRay only?), and the format makes the multi-episode arcs much stronger than they were when first broadcast, even without the addition of the extra footage.

In the end, then, there's something in The Complete Season One for almost everyone: Complete nerds like me get to geek out over the evolution of the show and peeks behind the scenes, casual fans who liked the series on television can enjoy the Director's Cut episodes and watching the arcs in one sitting, and newcomers... Well, they just get a pretty good cartoon that's, for the most part, more enjoyable than the prequel trilogy. Me, I'm already waiting for the Complete Season Two boxset to hear how they managed to get away with torching their enemies on Cartoon Network prime time.

I suppose if Fringe has to do a relatively mythology-free episode, at least it harnesses a little B-movie magic. Last night's episode has shades of The Incredible Melting Man, in which an astronaut returns from space and becomes a monster who needs to consume human flesh to survive. But Fringe took a gory concept and made it creepier with its radiation-sucking cosmonaut turning people to ash. That opening scene was a great little nugget of horror; even though we expect it, it's chilling when the woman comes home and her excitement melts into trepidation, then frightened disbelief as her husband crumbles to ash. When Fringe does monster of the week, it does a solid job.

Scream Queens: I get that this was supposed to evoke classic horror movies, but does it only have to be the women screaming? Men are perfectly capable of emitting a nice, high-pitched wail.

Russian Fringe Science: It makes sense that the Russians would have fringe science (and that it might be even more developed than American fringe science). I hope this isn't just a throwaway mention, and that this somehow comes into play in the coming interdimensional war. And it's interesting that Walter still uses the term "pinko." Is it just because of his 17-year timeout, or does this indicate something about Walter's politics.

Whither Nina Sharp? It's also interesting that, in a Broyles-centric episode, we see neither hide nor cybernetic arm hair of Nina Sharp. Little has been made of Broyles' relationship with Sharp since it was revealed in the season premiere, and now that Broyles is returning to the case that ruined his marriage, he doesn't ask Sharp to use Massive Dynamics' resources. Perhaps he's trying to maintain some illusion that Olivia is the only one in contact with Massive Dynamics', or maybe he only turns to Nina Sharp when he knows she can help with the problem at hand.

Man in Black: As the episode went on, it began to feel less like a standalone episode, and more like we're lining up potential players for the battle ahead. The CIA is less than thrilled that the Fringe Division is poking its nose into the case of the missing cosmonaut. Does the CIA have its own Fringe Science Division? Although, at the end of the episode, a man from the CIA informs Broyles that the cosmonaut was still alive and gave a pointed look at the night sky. I wonder how often the CIA deals with problems by shooting them into space.

Astrid Action: This was a Broyles-heavy episode, so most of our regular cast took a back seat to Lance Reddick. Still, when are we going to see Astrid in the field already?

Walter Moment of the Week: Walter still got to be Walter despite the focus on Broyles. He maligned Russians, played with Tinker Toys, and shared yet another embarrassing memory from Peter's childhood (involving doodles of genitalia no less). But the most truly Walter moment was when we fully realized that Walter thinks of licorice the way some people think of tea cookies and canapes.

When I first heard about Matt Youngmark's Chooseomatic book, I fully expected I'd get a fairly straightforward (perhaps even perfunctory) take on the zombie apocalypse where the only twist was the multithreaded, Choose Your Own Adventure-inspired storytelling layered over it. It's something we've seen before; last year, a pair of designers released a choose-your-own-ending film, The Outbreak, with a similar premise. But I was pleasantly surprised when the book arrived and I found a pink, chainsaw-wielding bunny on the cover and a note inside warning me to avoid the zombie kitten.

Zombocalypse Now doesn't just feature a pink stuffed rabbit; you are the pink stuffed rabbit, living in a world where stuffed animals walk, talk, and intermarry with the human population. As the book opens, you are waiting on what is sure to be another atrocious online date. And sure enough, when he or she shows up, they're disheveled, glassy-eyed, lacking in hygiene, and mumbling something about brains. You've been on so many bad dates that it takes you a while to figure out that they're undead, but soon enough, you're up to your fuzzy elbows in the walking dead.

From here there are, of course, multiple paths your bunny self could take from here. You could tag along with a renegade cop named Mittens (who, despite the name, is not a stuffed animal). You could visit your conspiracy theorist friend Ernie, who is convinced that the walking dead are powered by fluoride in the water. You could try to strike out on your own and bash in as many zombie brains as you possibly can. You just hope that the choices you make lead to your ultimate survival.

Spoiler alert: you usually end up zombie chow.

To get the full effect of Zombocalypse Now, you have to read through several of the plotlines. Some are, admittedly, stronger than others (there's an oddly rushed one where you go all I Am Legend and start experimenting on the zombies), but taken together, the stories do form a cohesive narrative, and the logic from one plotline still holds true in the others. For example, in several storylines, the zombies are unusually attracted to your car (as in licking the windshields), and in one of threads, we learn exactly why. The chilling and rather amusing cause behind the zombie outbreak is also key; you learn about it in certain storylines, but it plays a significant role in others — including one ending where you mistakenly believe you've survived.

Youngmark packs a lot of strange odds and ends into his zombie adventure, and cherrypicks references from a wide variety of genres: mob movies, cop dramas, the works of Stephen King, and The Postman, to name a few. There's even a moment where you let out the battle cry "Leeeeeeroy Jenkins!" The effect is over-the-top silliness, like someone set a particularly manic children's book in the midst of a zombie outbreak. Sure, it's a bit on the fluffy side, but I found myself eagerly flipping back to try out different plotlines — at first to see if I could survive, then to root out some of the book's more bizarre twists and turns. It's a satisfying way to spend a couple hours here and there, even if you do die most of the time.

And do watch out for that zombie kitten. It's a killer.

The set-up to the tale is telegraphed on the back of the record sleeve, with a short set of sentences explaining the Moon colony and its secret guardians. Apparently, scores of half-alive bodies are kept in incubators on the moon to be used for organs in hospitals world-wide.

Guardians are employed for six month shifts to watch the silent caskets, and these guards spend the other six months of the year equally secluded among silent trees in opulent Colorado cabins.

The story is told through seven songs, each a brief glimpse into the world of our protagonist on his journey from bored night watchman to twisted, horrific cannibal. These glimpses are often poetic and obtuse, only obliquely fitting the narrative structure, so my recap / review is only one perspective on how to interpret these songs. No matter how you interpret them, though, they add up to a pretty chilling scifi horror narrative.

The first track, "Surrounded," led by Mountain Goat John Darnielle, is upbeat enough, but it introduces us to the crushing loneliness of being the secret guardian of an organ harvesting complex on the moon. Our leading man is in Colorado, on a six-month isolated shore-leave from his Moon-duties. The weather has turned sour, and the power's gone out in his cabin, but he's got a generator, so he passes the night surrounded by the white noise and static from his television.

His loneliness is clearly starting to drive him a little batty. As he contemplates the silent, watchful trees surrounding his cabin, he says "let me die, surrounded by machines." Remember, during the other half of the year, he keeps a watchful eye over a collection of half-alive bodies, equally surrounded by machines but not allowed to die.

The next track, the Vanderslice-delivered "Lucifer Rising," shows the seclusion continuing to take its toll. "Call me John the Ripper tearing at your skin," the lonely man says, "some day I'll pay for this." There's a rising intensity to this song, and our protagonist's memories of his home among the "generation fields" and "ventilation domes," surrounded by "body after body, alone..." it's pretty chilling.

"Satori In Denver," headed by Darnielle, is about our hero musing while driving "technically out of bounds" from his enforced seclusion and into the city for supplies. His "anklet buzzing on his leg," he contemplates his "solitude, friend of the friendless," and his thoughts on loneliness actually seem a little less manic, a little more depressing.

Next, on Vanderslice's "Scorpio Rising," our hero seems to be contemplating the strange life of "Bobby" Beausoleil, who starred in and composed the music for the film "Lucifer Rising." He later joined up with Charles Manson. Something about this character seems to resonate with our protagonist who says, "I'm not alright, I'm really not up for the fight."

"Sudden Oak Death," led by Darnielle, is the first time the guilt-ridden watchman gives in to panic and hallucination. Sudden oak death is a tree disease, but this man thinks he's succumbing to something similar. "When the crack sounds in the wood," he tells us, "you will know that I'm down for good." He feels he deserves whatever bizarre, debilitating thing that's taking him over; he's "so ready just to fall down, just to fall down and stay down."

"Columns Pillars Steps," led by Vanderslice, finds our guilt ridden protagonist in an apparently nostalgic mood. He's recalling night-long sojourns, possibly in his life before his involvement with lunar organ harvesters, alone with his guilt; "don't try to comfort me," he says, "I'm inconsolable still."

And finally, our protagonist's enforced solitude, surrounded by silent, watchful trees and accompanied by nothing but his paranoid guilt has finally ended, and a darker, stranger method of release for this guilt has set into his brain.

He's returned to his post at the moon colony on the Darnielle-led "Emerging," and "[he's] starving but the suit keeps [him] warm." He hungers, though, not just for food, but the comfort of a warm sleeping body. He recounts, "I kick an incubator open... sustenance, blessed sustenance oozing from the tomb."

In a last ditch effort for some human contact, he takes up a bizarre ritual: not only does he start sleeping with the half-dead bodies he is in charge of, he's resorted to cannibalizing these bodies. He seems unrepentant, though. "No one's ever gonna come," he justifies, "and nobody's gonna know." His dark ritual will not separate him from the good people of Earth when he finally rejoins them. "I will sail home again, concealed among the upright walking men."

So his journey from lonely but coping to cripplingly alienated and coping in an altogether more drastic, sick way is complete.

The whole of the record hangs together, then, as a very dark, very strange tale, combining elements of Duncan Jones's Moon with the stranger, older Gothic tales of satanic rituals, including touches of the story of Charles Manson's twisted family and the hidden guilt of a Poe story.

All accompanied by the earnest storytelling of the Mountain Goats and the lilting poetic pop of John Vanderslice. The two each seem to be curating their own version of the narrative, but the combination feels like a fully fleshed out (pardon the grisly pun) descent into madness. What's most jarring is how serene and easy this descent seems to be.

The album is no longer available, as it was a limited vinyl pressing sold mostly on the tour these two artists embarked on together. But it's a fascinating record, and some internet searching might reveal some of these tracks. And while none of it is as demented and science-fictiony as this record, the rest of each of these artists' respective catalogs deserve exploring. Bonus: their other records won't keep you up at night dreading the loneliness of a secret, profane duty like harvesting organs on the Moon.

There's a scene early on in Gentlemen Broncos where science fiction novelist Ronald Chevalier (the always wonderful Jemaine Clement) is holding a workshop on fantasy naming. A young girl tells him that she has a troll character named Teacup. He scoffs and explains that there are rules for naming trolls, and that a troll mother would never name a child "Teacup;" only a little girl would.

It's as if writers Jared and Jerusha Hess anticipated what the critics would say about Gentlemen Broncos, namely that the film disobeys the conventions of movie storytelling in favor of their own strange and gleeful energy. Gentlmen Broncos is a movie well aware of what it doesn't do, of what rules it doesn't follow, but it doesn't care. It's naming its troll Teacup whether you like it or not.

That said, Gentlemen Broncos isn't Napoleon Dynamite. Where the latter is a character study of an unusual protagonist, the former is, by contrast, a highly metafictional narrative about creativity and adaptation, with a hero, a villain, and a solid resolution.

Benjamin Purvis, a teenager nominally homeschooled by his loving but distracted mother (an appropriately out-of-it Jennifer Coolidge), spends most of his days writing pulpy science fiction stories. When he attends a writing conference keynoted by Chevalier, his favorite writer, Ben's latest endeavor, a wild tale called Yeast Lords: The Bronco Years falls into the hands of two conference attendees. One is Tabatha Jenkins, a fellow homeschooler who quickly elbows her way into Ben's life. Where Ben is quiet and shy to the point that he doesn't like people reading his stories, Tabatha is brazen, projecting a strange, confident energy. She is utterly without shame, but also unafraid of doing or embracing things that could be perceived as weird, and her remarkable joie de vivre makes her oddness charismatic where it should be off-putting.

The other person who happens upon Yeast Lords is Chevalier himself. Chevalier, with an endless collection of leather jackets and surgically attached to his Bluetooth ear piece, long ago won legions of fans with his series about harpies who shoot lasers from their breasts. It's easy to see Chevalier as a parody of the self-celebrating author (something Clement does with pitch perfection), especially when he presents a slideshow of the forty-some odd pieces of cover art he drew for his first novel. But even as we're laughing at the absurd harpy folk art, there's something deeper underneath. Chevalier was once an excited dreamer who compulsively doodled his bizarre fantasies; now he believes there are rules for naming trolls and his creativity has suffered. He simply can't recapture that crazy imaginative energy he once had, although he can certainly recognize it when he reads Yeast Lords.

Tabatha and Chevalier both want to adapt Yeast Lords, though each does it in a sort of underhanded way, and Ben's original vision gets poked and prodded into new shapes. Interspersed with the main narrative are scenes from Yeast Lords itself, with Sam Rockwell playing the story's shaggy-haired hero, Bronco. These scenes are crammed with all the strange ideas that swarm through Ben's brain: stolen testicles, cyclops turret men, rocket-powered battle stags, and yeast that gives you superpowers. These scenes are pure, straightforward fun, but they also show us first-hand Ben's own vision for Yeast Lords. As Chevalier takes over the story, we see how he changes and bastardizes Ben's original ideas, with Rockwell playing a very different version of Bronco. And as Tabatha and her friends adapt Yeast Lords as an amateur movie, we can experience the same disappointment Ben feels, that the characters and special effects never quite live up to the version in his head.

Gentlemen Broncos has been accused of asking audiences to laugh at the very characters it claims to celebrate: the weirdoes and misfits. And yes, it's easy to laugh at Ben's mother, who makes popcorn balls for every occasion and designs nightgowns that could double as space opera costumes, and Lonnie, Tabatha's lip-smacking filmmaker friend who invites less than flattering comparisons to Napoleon Dynamite. But the Hesses are, in fact, asking you to be a little repulsed by these characters and then look deeper, to see if they know something we don't. Yes, they may not fit into normal society, they may have values that differ from ours, they may make ugly nightgowns and crappy movies, but they're having fun. They're trying to live their lives on their own terms and be creative and pursue their wildest, wackiest ideas. Gentlemen Broncos may invite you to laugh at their foibles and their quirks, but it also invites you to go home, pick up your sketchbook, your camera, or that novel you're working on, and create something as great, as strange, and as utterly your own as Yeast Lords.

This little teen flick is based on a popular YA series by Darren Shan, Cirque Du Freak. The long-running book series folows Darren (Chris Massoglia) through his half-vampire life, with his undead master Larten Crepsley (John C. Reilly). The film is based on the first book of the series with a collection of strange supernatural creatures, freaks and multiple vampire fingernail-scratching face offs.

In Darren Shan's world vampires don't have fangs — instead, they have super sharp nails which they use like sorority girls to scratch each other to death, when they're not flinging tombstones at their opponents' heads. The vamps also have "super spit," which will heal skin slashes. As someone who's more grossed out by germs than blood, I cannot even begin to describe the seat-squirming I endured in the final vampire battle, when each blow was followed by a hand lick and spit rub. UGH GERMS.

But I'm getting ahead of myself: the heart of this story is about two boys. Too terribly acted, horribly constructed, dialogue-mumbling boys, who fall head-first into this world of supernatural mystery. Besides our hero Darren, there's Steve (Josh Hutcherson). Darren is good and Steve is evil, and that's pretty much all you need to know about their characterizations. Through a mix of happenstance and destiny, both boys become vampires, and end up on opposite sides of the Vampire-versus-Vampaneze war. And let me tell you, reading the word "Vampaneze" isn't nearly as funny as hearing John C. Reilly say it over and over, deadly serious. Quick, hide — the Vampaneze are coming!

The — ahem — Vampaneze are evil, and murder humans for their blood, while the Vampires are goodly creatures who sedate humans with their super breath and only take a little bit of blood, then heal the wound. Oh yeah, they have magic breath too, and they can fly/flit around.

John C. Reilly is a Vampire, and he and the foppish Willem Dafoe used to be generals in the war against the Vampaneze. But now they are neutral, and Reilly lives in the circus. One of the things Vampire's Assistant has going for it is a sick list of actual actors cast as carneys in the Cirque Du Freak, 30 Rock's Jane Krakowski can rip her arms off and regenerate them back — which she sometimes eats, skeeving me out like the kid that ate his scabs in grade school. Patrick Fugit is the Snake Boy, Ken Watanabe is Mr. Tall, who is tall, Salma Hayek plays the psychic bearded lady Madame Truskaand, there's a freak with two super stomachs, a man with no midsection, an adorable freak with a set of powerful chompers, a wolf-man, and more. The freaks were by far my favorite part of the film, but sadly they were on screen all of 20 minutes. Still the circus freaks were wonderfully enjoyable and even magical, and they should have their own series on VH1.

But it does get a bit old, when the members of this talented troupe keep calling their place of work "the Cirque." Why did you join The Cirque? I've been in The Cirque for years. That's life in The Cirque. You need to prove yourself to stay in The Cirque, Forget it Jake. It's Cirque-town. Enough already — I get it. You're just using a fancy way of saying Circus over and over.

Yet, the vampire war is the main axis on which this story revolves, and sadly those damn Vampaneze had to go and make Steve, Darren's besty, their evil leader — so too much time is spent fighting Vampaneze and not in THE CIRQUE.

But this allows for plenty of scenes of John C. Reilly being a wise and sexy old vampire. Even when he's delivering the most bat-shit ridiculous lines like, "You have bad blood — I can't make you a vampire. Oh, you have good blood," he totally makes them work. I did not think he would win me over as Crepsley, but damn it if he didn't have the audience laughing at even the lamest of jokes. He's that good of an actor. He sold the vampire bit, and even mastered some strange sort of sing-song talk that apparently vampires have. Crepsley takes Darren under his wing and teaches him the vampire ways, meanwhile his mean bestie is being groomed to be the Vampaneze King, which I assume comes with some sort of t-shirt that says "That's Vampaneze, Bitch!"

So the battle between good and Japanese vampires, no wait, sorry — vampires and Vampaneze — is on, and Darren and Steve, who's now become completely evil — but it's okay, because he tells you his Mom is a drunk twice, so you know, issues — have to fight. See they really hate each other now....

And that's pretty much what happens. Ridiculous, no? It's not True Blood insane, but it walks the fine line between "that's weird," and "I don't get it." But if you're going to the movie for Salma, don't — she's not in it nearly enough. You should go if you like tween vampire movies, if you like tween movies generally, to hear people use the word Vampaneze in a sentence, and if you want to see something fun. When this film is good — and that means when John C. Reilly is on screen — it's a lot of fun. But when the two main kids or anyone else who's not a freak takes the wheel, it's a mess. Like "Macbeth death scene quoting" mess. Still I left laughing and wanting more hot John C. Reilly vampire action, which is a new experience for probably everyone in cinema.

Dream Machine: If I've learned anything from watching Fringe, it's that you should never, ever join a clinical trial. Earlier this season, it was those soldiers and their neurotoxin treatment that made them explode, and this week it was the guy who wants to hijack your dreams.

Our mystery of the week kicks off when a former sleepwalker suddenly thinks one of his co-workers is a demon straight out of Angel, and starts bashing his brain in. To add insult to crazy, the demon-seeing fellow soon dies of exhaustion. And later on, a restaurant chef walks through her kitchen at work, but instead of seeing tasty cow meat on the grill, she sees human hands and flips out, convinced her co-workers are cannibals. Much stabbing ensued.

Turns out both of these lucid dreamers received treatment for sleep disorders from a Dr. Nayak. Nayak implanted a chip in the brains of these once-disturbed sleepers (second note: if you do participate in a trial, never let them put a chip in your head). The chip was supposed to act as a sort of glandular pacemaker to regulate the thalamus, but Nayak actually used it to transmit their dreams to his brain. No dreams means no rest, hence the exhaustion deaths. But he can also trigger the dream state while they're awake, causing all those freaky hallucinations. But why steal dreams? According to Walter, it's a lot like being on LSD, but also highly addictive.

As much as a dream-stealing machine sounds like something out of a child's fairy tale, we actually get some cool visuals out of it and some classically villainous mad science. I'll take this over scorpion children any day.

Promise Me, No Students: Can we just dump Agent Jessup and adopt Agent Kashner instead? It's nice to see someone enter the lab who isn't as stoic as Astrid or Olivia (I mean, eventually someone had to vomit at the autopsy table). And he's so utterly unprepared for Walter that it's kind of adorable. Dude, he's not just some crazy old man. He's a mad scientist.

No More Nightmares: Every time Peter utters a single word about his childhood, I'm sure it's chock full of significance. Here, he tells Olivia about the nightmares he had as a child, and that Walter — in one of his rare moments of parental involvement — kept him from remembering the nightmares. I was almost disappointed that we learned the reason for this so quickly. Peter has nightmares about being snatched from his room by a man who both is and is not his father — that being the Walter of our universe.

Word Jumble: Olivia's bowling guru is still in the picture, and I guess we'll have to stick with him until we learn whether he holds the secrets of the universe. Bowling Guru has Olivia do an exercise where she obtains a seemingly random set of letters and then rearrange them into a coherent phrase — the phrase she needs to hear. I'm seriously looking for a copy of The Secret in that bowling alley. Anyway, Olivia cries when she realizes her letters form the phrase "You're gonna be fine." Sure, until that other universe comes crashing down on your head.

Astrid Watch: Did Walter just call her Asterisk again? Ouch.

Walter Moment of the Week: Definitely drugging Agent Kashner. No contest.

But it does seem odd after his heartfelt apology to hallucinogen-loving guinea pig Rebecca last week. In fact, between this and the Asterisk comment, it feels like Walter is regressing a tad.

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.

So, you've been bitten by a werewolf. What now? Do you run wildly through the hills three nights a month, gleefully slaughtering whatever comes into your path? Do you nobly sacrifice your life before the full moon can transform you into a rabid beast? Hardly. The Werewolf's Guide to Life, by Ritch Duncan and Bob Powers, advocates safe, responsible lycanthropy and offers a thorough guide to keeping yourself, your loved ones, and the neighbors' pets safe during your hairy times of the month.

You see, being a werewolf is a lot of work.

Duncan and Powers take you through all the basics in obsessive detail, from surviving your first transformation (a moving truck and several dozen pounds of drugged raw meat will do in a pinch) to setting up your safe room (S&M experts are great at building custom rigs and not asking too many questions). They also delve into the long-term lifestyle changes that come with your new condition. Should you tell your spouse? Can you still maintain your religious faith (Remember, werewolves can't keep Kosher)? What kinds of jobs are ideal for werewolves? What do you do if you accidentally get loose and kill someone?

The Werewolf's Guide to Life is likely a must-have for fans of fur and fangs, but you don't need to be obsessed with werewolves to be charmed by its impressive thoroughness and oddball humor. It charts out the "Wolf Moons," the three days each month when werewolves transform and assigns dietary points to various foodstuffs (dog food, raw steaks, live cattle) to ensure you get enough calories and don't try to break free. There are strange little sidetrips into werewolf lore, complete with margin notes on famous werewolves (Did you know Rosa Parks became a werewolf at the end of her life?). And that's all before we get to dealing with "Fur Chasers," people who want to be attacked by werewolves in hopes of becoming werewolves themselves. The humor is usually droll, and a bit macabre (at one point, you're advised to check your stool for the remains of any potential victims), but sometimes slides into silly (a chapter on dealing with vampires bears the subtitle "Navigating Your Interactions with the Smug, Effeminate Undead).

The Werewolf's Guide to Life is a worthy successor to fantastical manuals like The Zombie Survival Guide and How to Survive a Robot Uprising. And hey, if you know someone who has recently been bitten by a large animal during a full moon, you might want to slip them a copy, too. It could just save their life.

Despite a couple of flaws — which I'll get to in a bit — "Belle Chose" was Exhibit A for how great Dollhouse can be when the concept is handled right. So it's not surprising that it was written by Tim Minear, the man who gave us Firefly's "Out Of Gas" and many of Angel's best episodes.

So what's the secret these two men share? They're both in positions of great power — the college professor is tenured and at the zenith of his career, the serial killer is wealthy and connected. But neither of them can have what they want, and their fantasies about women remain tantalizingly out of reach. That's frequently the larger thread of Dollhouse: The wealthy may already own your bodies and souls, but they want to own your hearts and minds as well. They always have some unfinished business, something that people (usually women) are unable to give them freely for whatever reason.

The professor wants a young, impressionable, none-too-smart student (named Kiki!) whom he can teach and condescend to, in a sort of Educating Rita pastiche that turns pornographic. It's not just that he wants a student to sleep with him to get an "A" — watch those scenes where he tells her about Chaucer. (Or "Chauncey," as she insists on calling him, in a lovely reference to Being There.) And even though the professor really does have all the power in this situation — even disregarding the meta-point that Kiki only exists because he had the Dollhouse create her — he wants to teach Kiki that she really has all the power. He trots out the standard second-wave feminist analysis of Chaucer's Wife Of Bath as empowered woman, who uses sexuality to get what she wants. Traditionally, people viewed the Wife Of Bath as a harlot, a cautionary tale for women, but it became fashionable to view her as a feminist heroine instead.

Here's the Wife Of Bath giving the Fourth Doctor, Tom Baker, a hand job — from Pasolini's Canterbury Tales movie:

As that montage up top makes clear, the professor and the serial killer, Terry, both have the same fantasy about women: that the women are in control, that they're constantly using their sexuality to gain advantage, and that the men are helpless. (The only difference is, the professor enjoys this fantasy, and insists the women aren't whores — Terry thinks they are.)

So Terry, the serial killer, collects "Dolls" of his own — but instead of the mindwiped, programmed puppets the Dollhouse supplies, he creates his own, injecting people with paralytic drugs and then turning them into human mannequins — they each represent one of the women in Terry's family, who ignore him and leave him out of their games. If you really had any doubt that Dollhouse is a metaphor for how powerful people objectify and mistreat everyone, especially women, then the opening scenes of this episode ought to have set you straight.

The underlying metaphors in "Belle Chose" are by no means subtle — and that's a big part of what I love them for. They come right out and say it: the professor, a model Dollhouse client whose fantasy is incredibly harmless and almost sweet, is directly compared, again and again, to the serial killer who kidnaps women, injects them with crap, and turns them into his fully poseable figures. Both men are in denial, both men are blinded by fantasies about female power that excuse their abuse of women. And when the two finally meet — it doesn't really go well for either of them.

Because, of course, the episode takes a weird left turn about two-thirds of the way through — the serial killer's been downloaded into Victor's body, and thanks to the foolishness of Saul Tigh (helping out his fellow artifiicial person) the VictorOfTheLambs character gets out and about. So Topher tries to shut down Victor/Terry — only to swap Victor's and Echo's imprints. So now Echo is imprinted with the misogynistic serial kiler, while Victor thinks he's a hot teenage girl. Cue weird woman-hating stuff from Echo, while Victor flirts with a bunch of boys and nearly gets gay-bashed. it's almost too over the top, but it works — partly because it's great to see one more weird use of the Dollhouse's brain-switching tech.

But yeah, there were a couple of major flaws in the episode that did lose it a bit of its sheen of awesomeness:

Flaw #1: The incompetence of the Dollhouse is staggering. I mean, really. This is starting to damage my suspension of disbelief. The moment where Adelle actually turns to Topher and says something along the lines of, "We've imprinted our active with the mind of a serial killer and turned him loose — and he has no GPS locator!" made me giggle. When the characters themselves comment on how incompetent they're being, it's a bad sign. I also think Professor Skankypants should get a refund.

Flaw #2: The last act was a little bit of a let down. I'm not sure where you could go with this episode, after Echo was imprinted with Terry's sick mind, but having Echo turn into the episode's monster (which sort of happened last week as well) was a bit disappointing. And then Echo gives a long speech in which she tries to convince the three captive women to kill her — why not just have them tie Echo up? The longer Echo's speech dragged on, the less concerned I was that Terry's persona was going to reassert control, and the more I felt like the episode was just spinning its wheels.

But meanwhile, the episode also packed a ton of other awesomeness:

Adelle is amazing. Her double act with Boyd was one of the major highlights of the show, especially "There is no need to continue to translate me." And then she switches, seamlessly, into an equally great double act with Ballard, where she handles the uncle and he handles the evil nephew. So great.

All of the stuff with Paul learning to be Echo's handler was terrific — this is the first time we've seen what happens to the Actives after they're programmed, and the scenes of Echo getting a makeover were a much-needed bright spot. Echo/Kiki being all bouncy and giggly while the campy costuming guy tells her she's won a free makeover were great.

And of course, Paul is totally in love with Echo — this episode pretty much broadcast it. The whole Fast Times At Ridgemont sequence where Paul watches Echo in the shower and then watches her act flirty later on, in extreme slow-mo. That's not your standard concerned handler look — that's a seriously schmoopy/lustful look. I kind of want them to have Anthony Stewart Head guest star, so he can raise one eyebrow and say, "A Handler in love with an Active? Fascinating."

Oh, and it's official: Dr. Claire Saunders is missing, both in the sense that nobody knows where she is, and in the sense that we miss her. A lot. And it's sounding like despite Boyd's amazing tallness, Adelle really will go over his head and have Claire dragged, kicking and acting her heart out, back to the Dollhouse.

Promethea was always the strongest of Alan Moore's turn-of-the-century America's Best Comics line; less throwaway nostalgia than Tom Strong, less full of indulgent parody than Tomorrow Stories and more regular than Top Ten, it was the series that seemed to have a "point" beyond simple entertainment. Reading the new oversized collection of the series' first twelve issues, the greater intent behind the entertainment becomes obvious - but also, when taken in one sitting, threatens to overpower the story more than once.

On the more straight-forward level, the story follows teenager Sophie Bangs as she investigates (and then becomes) the mythical heroine Promethea, who has existed for centuries, possessing those who were able to conjure her through literary means. And on that level, it's a very engaging, if slightly derivative, read; much of the fun from that story comes from the asides and injokes than the superhero antics Sophie finds herself in the middle of, especially given the Joker rip-off bad guy. But if Moore's source material seems a little too obvious there, it's because his real interest is in the other part of the series, which is essentially a magical handbook; as Sophie learns the history of Promethea and the earlier Prometheas before her, Moore repeatedly steps outside of the superhero narrative to teach her - and, by extention, the reader - his rules of magic.

How much this will be of interest to the reader depends on how interested the reader is in magic, and specifically Moore's magic; as the series took more and more of a diversionary direction into the more magical realms - the final issue reprinted in the Absolute edition is literally an entire issue of Moore explaining magic via talking snake heads - Promethea becomes a much more narrowly-focused book, with parts that (in retrospect) foretell Moore's own retreat from the mainstream with books like Lost Girls. For my part, I found it interesting enough to keep reading, but also much harder to genuinely care about; it was as if the series changed from a straight-forward narrative to a series of lectures from someone who didn't have the perspective on his subject to necessarily remember to tell newcomers why they should care.

Throughout the whole thing, however, artists JH Williams III and Mick Gray shine; even as Moore loses the narrative thread or falls into (self-)parody at times, the book continues to look amazing, with a sense of design and character that has only since been outdone by Williams' own subsequent work on Seven Soldiers and especially Detective Comics. While I'm unconvinced about the pricetag ($100) of the Absolute edition of the series - especially as it features no new material from the two much-cheaper paperback editions it collects other than an afterword by Brad Meltzer - the chance to see this artwork on a larger scale is very welcome indeed.

Absolute Promethea, then, is a difficult book to recommend. The series itself, much less so - although it's not for everyone, especially as it shifts from superhero comic to magical history textbook - but the high price of the Absolute edition genuinely makes me think that everyone who isn't buying the book solely for the artwork should seek out the paperbacks, instead.

Absolute Promethea is available in comic stores now.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Initially, it looked like we were getting another stand-alone episode this week, involving a police officer who mysteriously crystallizes and explodes upon touching a nondescript briefcase, taking out the briefcase and everyone around him. While Walter and Astrid are putting Humpty Dumpty back together again, they discover that the exploded cop was injecting himself with something that likely turned him into a bomb. When Peter realizes the cop must have been injecting the serum as far back as his tour in Iraq, he heads off to Baghdad with a physically and cognitively unstable Olivia in tow.

We're probably meant to assume that, because this serum (known as "Tin Man") came to Iraq and happens to make people explode in very public places, Iraqi scientists were actively trying to turn people in human bombs. But no, no. The Iraqi scientist who created it had pretty unambiguously benevolent motives. He was trying to counteract the effects of a neurotoxin several of the soldiers were exposed to, and it just happened to make most of them explode. Bummer. And, if anyone is going around making soldiers explode, it's the psychotic colonel who was attached to the Tin Man project.

By using the serum to blow up a watermelon (prompting the ever put-upon Astrid to ban fruit from the lab), Walter is able to determine that a certain frequency is triggering the explosions, and by emitting a counter-frequency, the explosion can be prevented. Sure enough, the team manages to locate another former soldier injected with Tin Man headed for another nondescript briefcase; the explosion is averted and the colonel is apprehended. Everyone lives happily ever after.

Ah, but then comes the big reveal. This was about so much more than exploding watermelons and jaunts abroad. It was about the briefcases. The briefcases belong to none other than the Observer, or apparently multiple Observers, who pass their surveillance back and forth via courier.

The Observer(s): So now we know there are multiple Observers, and that they're passing information amongst themselves. No great surprise there, as we've seen the Observer talking on the phone to someone before. But is their purpose really to destroy us, as the colonel seems to suggest? And is that our Observer getting the briefcase full of pictures of Walter? And is that actually our Walter, or could it be the Walter from the other universe?

Olivia's Guru: Kevin Corrigan, as Olivia's bowling alley guru, is trying to convince us he's the world's most boring cognitive therapist, trying to restore Olivia to her former self by making her score kiddie bowling and tie her shoes. When she's fed up with his Mr. Miyagi schtick, she pulls her gun on him. She's shocked she managed to walk without her cane, but I'm more concerned with her mental health, especially since she had vomit-inducing flashbacks earlier in the episode and it looks like next week the floodgates are going to tumble open.

A Little Bit of Astrid: She's still cleaning up Walter's messes, but it's nice to see Astrid say something to Walter and have him actually hear what she's saying. When Walter is predictably resistant to Peter finding them a new place to live, it's Astrid who very gently nudges him in the right direction. Plus, Walter even managed to acknowledge that he never shows any interest in Astrid's life beyond her cleaning and culinary abilities. Maybe now we can finally see her in the field?

Walter Moment of the Week: There are so many to choose from here. Aside from the thing with the watermelon, we learned that Walter had Peter assemble a Playboy jigsaw puzzle when he was ten as a sort of misguided anatomy lesson. But the best moment comes when Walter asks Peter to be a little more considerate of Gene:

So how exactly do you make a feel-good romantic comedy wrapped inside a blood-soaked future where the human race has reached a diseased dead end? In Zombieland, director Ruben Fleischer does it by combining your typical college nerd shut-in character Columbus with a world gone mad. Though you'd expect that a skinny dork would be the last person to survive a zombie infestation, in fact his antisocial skills serve him well in the apocalypse. "I treated everybody like zombies anyway," he admits in the hilarious voiceover commentary that peppers the movie, along with YouTube-style pop-up text to underscore key points. Like Columbus' "rules" for survival, including "double tap" (always shoot zombies twice) and "avoid bathrooms" (apparently they like to chomp people relaxing in public toilets).

After a World War Z-style disease apocalypse recycles every human in America into a crazed flesh-eater, Columbus goes on a cross-country trek to Ohio to find his parents. He's not sure why - he's never been close to his family - but it seems like the right thing to do. On the way he meets up with maniacal redneck Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), who has lost everything he loves and now takes a perverse joy in killing zombies in the most creative way possible. They strike up a strange but satisfying friendship, and Columbus decides to join Tallahassee on his quest to find the nation's only remaining stash of Twinkies. Because - why not? The world is over. Might as well enjoy processed food items.

Joining their little group are young woman Wichita and preteen Little Rock (everybody goes by the names of their Red State home cities). A shy, funny romance develops between Columbus, whose first semi-sexual experience ended in the lady going zombie on his ass, and Wichita, a con artist who trusts nobody and keeps trying to steal the guys' stuff. Eventually, however, they all decide to trust each other and head to Los Angeles. Little Rock has heard there's an amusement park there that's free of zombies, and the group decides to indulge her fantasy because - why not? Along the way, they bond over zombie killing and randomly smashing the shit out of horrible tourist shops filled with fake Indian souvenirs.

There are sneakily subversive moments throughout the film which seem to celebrate the demise of America - or, to be more precise, a certain kind of America. The kind of America where wooden Indians are sold in roadside stands; the kind where zombies roam Home Depot and violent videogames prepare you for real life. It's no accident that the movie begins with a tattered American flag that's fallen to the ground in the ruins of a zombie-infested city. But there's an undeniable exuberance to all this destruction. We're not mourning for a lost America, but looking forward to a crazy, liberated new one. This is a dystopia where romance blooms, not the kind where cannibals cook little kids for dinner.

Movies like Superbad and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist showcased the sweet, romantic side of nerd boys by placing them in ordinary teen courtship situations. The genius of Zombieland is that it swaps out high school for a surreal landscape that nevertheless clearly evokes the emotions associated with growing up. To be young is to laugh at death, and therefore nothing feels more true to that sensibility than finding humor in hordes of diseased, blood-spurting monsters and the social anarchy they sew. Zombieland goes successfully where Buffy the Vampire Slayer has gone before. This is a movie that recognizes nobody reaches adulthood without watching the safe world you once knew go up in flames.

There's always a simmering undercurrent of tenderness that flows beneath the gore and rampant shootings in this flick. Columbus, Tallahassee, Wichita and Little Rock wind up creating a family of outcasts whose connections are genuinely touching. And when Columbus and Wichita finally hook up, their passion for each other is earned. It's not one of those "well we just fought monsters let's hump" deals that you get in countless horror movies. They've gotten to know each other as people, not as zombie fighters. In fact, as I suggested earlier, the zombies are just a sick-comical stand-in for the trashed, psychotic world they're inheriting from the previous generations.

Like all excellent date movies, Zombieland leaves you feeling good - not just about your prospects for getting laid tonight, but about the whole future of our species. We can survive anything, and still keep falling into bumbling, goofy love with each other. Even when zombies are trying to eat our heads.

This week's GI Joe: Cobra Special is really an epilogue and explanation to the four issues that have come before, telling the origin of the power behind the terrorist throne in such a way that the comic itself becomes a physical metaphor for the characters involved. To say too much more would be to spoil the reveal that came at the end of the original mini-series, but suffice to say that this is literally a comic that deserves to be read backwards and forwards, with a symmetry that at once rewards and betrays the reader.

It's a clever idea, and one that goes beyond its gimmicky nature thanks to the execution and the fact that it legitimately works as a metaphor for the story it's telling; a final sign that this is a different, more thoughtful G.I. Joe.

It's true — GI Joe: Cobra tells a different story than the one we've seen in toys, comics, cartoons (and now, movies) through the years - One of an undercover Joe agent, working his way upwards through the Cobra ranks as the organization puts itself together, and as things get more and more out of his control. Dispensing with almost all of the over-the-top elements of the franchise - although we get easter-egg-style glimpses of the robotic BATTs and the HISS tanks - this is a harder-edged take on the familiar. And it's miles away from the old cartoon's enforced no-bullets, no-death rules (As one captured Joe finds out midway through the story, when an interrogation comes too close to the truth).

Credit writer Mike Costa (working with Christos Gage on the mini-series' four issues) with the revisions, but maybe Ed Brubaker, as well; his Sleeper seems like an obvious influence here, even if this series has a nihilism maybe even greater than Brubaker's modern classic. Artist Antonio Fuso's presence helps, giving the book a spiky freshness unlike the more traditional Joe comics, and fitting in with the off-kilter feeling of the series as a whole.

Even if you haven't read the GI Joe: Cobra series, tomorrow's Special is well worth picking up; it stands alone enough - and has enough formalist play - to work on its own. But if you pick up the four issues that came before, you'll find yourself confronted with a Cobra more realistic, and much more interesting, than you could've imagined when you played with the toys as a kid.

GI Joe: Cobra Special is released tomorrow.

Best known, probably for all his successful "epic" comics - big, overblown superhero stories like Infinite Crisis, Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War or the current Blackest Night - writer Geoff Johns has a secret weapon of his own: He's really good at the sentimental coming of age stories. You can see it in his Teen Titans comics, or currently in the Superboy series running in Adventure Comics - there's something about the alienation and melodrama of adolescence that his writing can perfectly capture, especially when captured with the right artist... and, thankfully, Secret Origin has Gary Frank drawing.

Frank's artwork adds a lot to the first issue; it's clean, clear, gives us a child Clark that you can imagine growing into Christopher Reeve (which is, strangely enough, important in terms of level of believability here), but more importantly, it's artwork that's very aware of space: You can read Clark's emotions from the art alone, thanks to the way Frank frames the story: isolation in school as the characters are surrounded by space, or the busy, crowdedness of his home life (Fittingly enough, Johns and Frank show us a boy torn between two worlds even before he discovers how literal that really is). For something with the potential to be such a gateway book, it's an impressive balancing act of work that should impress jaded fanboys but not confuse newbies who haven't read comics in years.

Johns' writing does a similar thing; avoiding the traditional route of starting on a dying Krypton (as both Birthright and Man of Steel, the last two big-name "Superman Origin" books did), the first issue instead centers around a teenage Clark being told about his heritage by (both sets of) his parents, and his reactions to that; we're given a much more grounded, and much quieter, story because of that, and it's much better for it - Clark's refusal to believe the truth (and especially his reaction to his mother's idea of him wearing a costume, at the end of the issue) gives us both a lead we're drawn to, and also a glimpse at the journey ahead, for him to become the Superman we know and love.

It does right so many things that Smallville did/does wrong - there's some sense of magic and, maybe more importantly, fear in everything that happens here, and Johns brings the story closer to Harry Potter than Smallville in places, much to its benefit, even if this particular hero is much more unwilling than Harry by the end of this first (of six) chapters.

The close of this issue is a knowing tease: Enough of a glimpse of what's to come to please expectations, but "wrong" enough to ensure that you're come back for the inevitable reversal next time. It's also slightly unnecessary; if future issues show the same wit and class as this debut, return visits were all but guaranteed.

Superman: Secret Origins #1 is available in comic book stores now.

Last night's episode, "Night of Desirable Objects," had me really pining for ZFT. Now, those folks knew how to throw a freaky Fringe Science party. Compared to their antics, the exploits of a lone scientist who combines his son's DNA with that of a scorpion seem a bit ho-hum. But we did get some great X-Files-inspired moments, and the case provided a serviceable backdrop for the show's overarching mythology.

Leave it to Walter to bring in some visually weird science, replicating Olivia's car accident in an attempt to fling a frog into the alternate dimension. The frog doesn't have any close encounters with William Bell, but it looks pretty cool as it flies through the air.

But one can only indulge in so much amphibian abuse before a new Fringe case crops up. This time the team heads out to Lansdale, Pennsylvania, where the locals have been going missing. The local sheriff has had no luck solving the disappearances, perhaps because his records focus more on which victims liked wearing flannel than who in the town might be a monster-building mad scientist. Olivia's off her game, thanks to her emerging super-hearing powers, but Peter manages to charm the sheriff into handing over the records by complimenting his expensive fishing lure — the titular Night of Desirable Objects.

The records lead the team to Andre Hughes, a farmer with some sort of creepy crawly in the walls of his house and a dead wife and infant son. Suspecting that Hughes might have killed the pair (from Walter: "Finally, some good news!"), they exhume the casket, only to find that the wife's body is still inside but, once upon a time, the baby managed to tunnel its way out (just what I needed: nightmares about evil, superstrong infants). And Astrid and Walter quickly discover that mama had lupus, which would have rendered her unable to have children, and Walter decides that, logically, Hughes must have introduced scorpion DNA into his son's system so he could survive his mother's hostile womb (great, now it's evil, superstrong scorpion infants). Hughes has rather inconveniently hanged himself in the interim, but Peter and Olivia manage to locate the arachni-boy beneath Hughes' home.

The theme of fathers who go to the extremes for their sons is soaked through this episode, though it's heartbreaking how none of the characters are yet aware of its significance. Like Hughes, Walter is a man who did a terrible thing to have his son, but failed to connect with him. Even when Peter shows Walter his own Night of Desirable Objects fishing lure and tells him the story of the boy who bought it to go night-fishing with his father, Walter genuinely fails to understand that Peter is talking about himself. But now, of course, they both have the opportunity and the desire to reconnect, and that reconnection will make it all the more devastating when Peter learns his true origins. Even when Olivia comments on the lengths Hughes was willing to go to in order to have a son, it's not to anyone involved in this father-son tragedy, but to Evil Fake Charlie (who has been ordered to debrief her on the alternate universe experience she can't remember before killing her). All the information about this tragic irony is there, but the characters aren't in quite the right configurations to catch on.

The other key plot point is Olivia's supersoldier powers, which manifested this episode in a that shiny new superhearing. It might be cool to hear conversations from far away, like having a built-in spy microphone, but it quickly becomes clear that it's also really annoying when you hear everything, including flies buzzing, soap bubbles popping, and all your neighbors' petty arguments and television sets. The morally ambiguous Nina Sharp seems to have anticipated that Olivia's body is becoming "foreign" to her, and has recommended Olivia see Sam Weiss, a fellow who can put her back together. Weiss, it turns out is comedic actor Kevin Corrigan, and he works in a bowling alley. Because if The Big Lebowski taught us anything, it's that bowling alleys are dens of wisdom and nefarious dealings, it follows that Weiss knows more about Olivia's issues than she does, asking if she's been getting "the headaches."

We also get a quick but significant appearance by Agent Jessup, who inspects Hughes home to find an important clue tucked into a Bible, and a note, apparently from Hughes' pastor, written inside. This is the second time we've seen Jessup with this sort of a Bible, and she regards it as a significant object. Have the Bibles appeared in episodes from the previous season? Are these calling cards related to the Pattern, or perhaps to the other universe?

Cloudy takes us where Judi Barrett and Ron Barrett's beloved children's book did not: Inside the lives of the villagers of Chewandswallow. Before bacon and eggs rained from the skies, the town was the number one sardines producer. But when the sardine market took a turn for the worse, the town was forced to eat the cities remaining sardine stock the people became pretty miserable (Insert 'Swallow's daily paper headline "Sardines Are Super Gross").

Meanwhile, the town's littlest scientist, Flint Lockwood (voiced by Bill Hader), is dealing with some problems of his own. An aspiring inventor, complete with adorable mad scientist rock star posters, Flint spent his childhood in misery after being teased mercilessly for all his failed inventions like the ratbird or spray on shoes that you can never take off. It's the classic (and yes, a bit overdone) your-inner-self-is-special tale. Eventually, Flint holes up in his lab with his sidekick Steve, a monkey wearing a Flint-created thought-translator (which means we get to hear the inner workings of a monkey's brain, mostly hilarious one word statements HUNGRY, EXCITED, GUMMI BEARS or STEVE!!!! voiced by Neil Patrick Harris) looking for the best invention. After lots of role-playing self-narrating moments in his backyard laboratory constructed to look like a version of 2001: A Space Odyssey made up of shower curtains and egg crates, Flint creates a robot that will turn water into food... which eventually ends up in the sky pumping out food for the masses, much to everyone delight and eventual terror.

In spite of its obvious plot, every joke, side story, character and event fits into the other, perfectly weaving an incredibly emotional and engaging story that will have you laughing out loud through glossy tear-filled eyes. And, yes, I'm not the only audience member that wiped away a few stray tears by the end. Everything has a purpose in this film, be it a homage to the original with an outdoor restaurant minus the ceiling so the spaghetti can just drop in, or Flint's distant father's muppet unibrow marring his eyes from view. For when that character finally lifts up his heavy brow, the comical pay off is classic.

It's the mix of little things like the shallow thoughts of a talking monkey added to the insane attention to detail that directors and writers Phil Lord and Chris Miller put into the script that elevates this film above all the other "it's not a Pixar" animations. Their razor sharp banter puts it miles above Monsters Versus Aliens and will keep you in stitches along with the little ones. And sure, some of the humor may be over the kiddies' heads but, to quote the directors themselves, "I didn't know what Bugs Bunny was doing when he pretended to be Humphrey Bogart as a kid, but I still really enjoyed what the character was doing. And now that I'm older it's adds something new because I know who that is... He's an actor, right?"

A lot of people will try and label Cloudy's humor as "quirky" or "off the wall", but I call it current. It's the type of cutting-edge "ha ha's" perfect for today's audience, a mixture of wit and blatant in-your-face comedy backed by heart. The ability to write cutting satire that also oozes love was apparent early on in their work as co-executive producers for the sitcom How I Met Your Mother, which is another great example of the Miller and Lord style. Each character gets skewered in their time onscreen, but in a loving way. Plus, not once do you see any of these laughs coming - the jokes, like their characters, are wholly original takes on a possibly cliched moment. While other writers might have gone for the cheap and easy, Lord and Miller kept it smart and surprising all the way through.

Another delicious course to the veritable bounty of treats awaiting inside Cloudy is the 3D element. In a movie industry where each new release is practically falling all over each other to slap the "IMAX 3D" sign on the front of their marquees, it's nice to see this technique actually enhance the viewing experience. Not once did the filmmakers lean on the over-the-top pointing sticks into the crowd 3D shtick. And what was 3D film created for, if not to put the audience in the middle of a cheeseburger storm? It's beautiful and takes you right inside the ice cream color palate world of Chewandswallow.

For the odd purists that demand a by-the-book recreation the Barretts' masterpiece, I'd like to point out that an exact recreation would merely be a 10 minute movie. This film, which worked closely with the Battetts throughout the production process, truly brings Chewandswallow to life, filling the town with folk that you grow to love so that, when the flea from a spagetti tornado, you're actually rooting for their safety. The film also easily incorporates classic images from the book into the plot, making note not to leave behind a single sailing sandwich or pancake squashed public school. In fact, it even helps to explain and flesh out some of the more miraculous weather occurrences. Who didn't want a closer look at the giant orange Jell-o mold on the horizon? The movie doesn't overshadow the book for a second - it's more of a loving addition then runs along side the original.

The only pitfall for this lovely film is the constant juggling of moral lessons it labors to keep in the air. Sure, they were going to have to touch on the excess issue when Cloudy opens up a nacho cheese hot tub smack in the center of their town, but I was much more invested on the character dilemmas and the relationships rather than being forced to realistically fathom what happens to a child when you throw them in a jellybean pool (Turns out it's a food coma)... But, at the same time, the whole experience was still fairly funny. And in the end, if you don't at least get a little chocked up in the end, then you're just a cold plate of left overs.

All food puns aside, Cloudy is all heart and laughs, and my favorite movie this summer.

Tonight's episode is "Nevermore" is a bit of a return to the weekly artifact hunts of yore, where Pete and Myka witness an artifact's destructive power, identify it, and bring it back to the Warehouse. Plus, we get to meet Battlestar Galactica alum Michael Hogan as Myka's emotionally distant father who gets tangled up with an artifact related to Edgar Allan Poe.

It's by no means show's strongest episode, but one that reflects and respects the show's changing character dynamics. The artifact hunt is fairly straightforward, without the mystery of some of the more recent episodes, but the point is more that we see the team functioning more as a cohesive team. Artie is no longer hiding the ball from his field agents, instead giving clear, concise information where they need it. Claudia takes a spin in the field, and there's still that playful sibling relationship between Pete and Myka, even if it no longer takes center stage. The major ding on character development is that Myka largely sits this episode out, though we at least get a dose of crotchety Michael Hogan (albeit only briefly crotchety) as compensation.

But the season finale, "MacPherson," almost feels like it comes from an entirely different show, one dominated not by artifact hunts and special effects, but one filled with intrigue and danger. James MacPherson, whom we met a few episodes back, provides the series with a much-needed and thoroughly satisfying villain, one ruthless and far more clever than anyone at the Warehouse has anticipated. All of the show's main characters — Artie, Myka, Pete, Claudia, Mrs. Frederic, even the little-used Leena — will have their roles to play, and there will be enough twists to keep you guessing who at the Warehouse you can really trust (and at least one character's loyalties will fall squarely on the wrong side of the fence). We'll even get a revelation about the Warehouse itself that's far more frightening than what's inside the Dark Vault.

Warehouse 13 has been a fun, light summer romp through humanity's secret mystical and technological heritage. But the final episode suggests that the second season could offer more than possessed typewriters and mystical disco balls. It could bring us more into the dark and dangerous underworld that craves these artifacts, and the sometimes disturbing lengths the Warehouse may have to go to in order to protect them.

Remember last week when I said that the I liked it best when True Blood went bananas? I may have been a little hasty. Turns out wrapping up this sex party was pretty easy to do, if you do nothing but subject the audience to pure unbridled lunacy. While I'm all for the whole hog True Blood, I think it crossed the rat shit rubicon, a phrase I really didn't think I was ever going to use again, a month ago and this episode was just some really strange, disjointed crap. But thank goodness for teen vampirism, Claudine Clark and another round of Yahtzee. Because the whole thing turned around and revved up for the third season half way through, but not without some pretty huge surprises.

Con: So we're back at the nest and Tara and Eggs acting like a pair of terrible Disney henchmen bumbling about and fawning all over said egg. Then Eggs made this face and I punched the TV....

Con: Where did we get all of these one shoulder bridesmaids dresses? Sure Maryann is wearing the grandmother's dress that was established but where did all of the same dresses come from? Did we teach zombie Eggs how to sew, because that's a cut scene I wouldn't mind viewing.

Pro: Even though they all look absolutely bonkers in the getup, god bless Lafayette playing with his straps in the back. He looks the best in this dress too BTW.

Con: Any one else getting a "we're just making shit up as we go" vibe all of a sudden. When Maryann tells Sookie to hit her with the ET fingers again I felt like I was watching a different show. In fact everything dealing with Maryann from this point on felt off for True Blood. But I did like Maryann yelling at her for not committing to the power fingers.

Pro: "I'm a waitress what the fuck are you?"

Pro: Hell yes to Hoyt's Mom is getting down to my favorite song. I'd like to think that if I turned into a black-eyed zombie I'd most likely end up in the kitchen twisting and singing Claudine Clark's Party Lights while making snickers casseroles. And by most likely I mean it's what I did this past Friday night.

Con: But now back to that infernal sex party, Sookie thinks back on her past specialness like when she almost killed Mr. Rattray. Sure, she may have special power but I thought the editing hinted at someone in the bushes helping not her magical cocoon powers? This is probably my misunderstanding but I was curious to find out who that was.

Con: More explaining that makes no sense from Maryann. So, Sam's the vessel because he showed up in her house naked and a virgin all those years ago? Then why did she sex him up? Why didn't she heart stab him back then instead of getting naked? What does this have to do with Tara summoning her?

Pro: ERW giving vampire Yahtzee another go, and while it started rough, alright really rough (ERW try. harder. please) It got infinitely better as the game went on. Is it because Eric is in it? Perhaps, but ERW felt more realistic this go round. I like that she's letting Eric sell her blood, which makes me wonder if she's doing it to be able to police all of Louisiana by being connected to all the V users, or something of that nature. And I didn't even mind the dry fang humping moaning moment. Could this have been the most amazing character to grace the small screen this season? Yes.

Con: But, that being said, I did not like the cartoon face ERW made on top of Eric.

Pro: Side note hinted at from the Queen, if vampires drink Sookie's light blood they fall in love with her? So maybe Bill's not in love with her, which means we can get feisty I'm-going-to-drink-from-your-upper-leg-areas Bill from the first episode back? Please let it be so. I want sexy mean Bill back - no please. She's already intent on ruining Eric, so let Bill be the bad boy now.

Pro: Jason and Andy packin and rollin'! Let do this.

Con: Nope they are zombies now. That was entirely too quick. Where was the big fight? What a huge build up for nothing. Also it should be noted that Jason and Andy are the out of control characters so it was funny to see them operate in a world where they had self control. Their big Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid moment was cut short, boo.

Pro: Terry telling them they can't see the bride before the wedding.

Pro: Bill wanting to glamor the kids. Ha, you're alright this episode Vampire Bill.

Pro: Sookie asking what was going on with the egg, thank you. What IS going on with the egg?

Con: The answer was basically "nothing we're just licking it." Sigh, so last week's giant cliffhanger was nothing, the nest was nothing, it's all nothing. Just a giant work up to a scene where a bunch of people sit around in the circle and lick it. It is vast nothing, like this entire Maryann plot. And it makes me think, "hmmmm I don't have nearly enough alcohol for this."

Pro/Con: I'm not sure how I felt about the creepy wedding ceremony. I liked that Andy carried the train, and yet I hated how he jumped around like Tara and Eggs did earlier as though he was Gurgi from The Black Cauldron. And yet I did enjoy how idiotic Tara looked standing there with that egg. Still the whole moment where the Sam/Sookie swap took place was awkward and seemed very thrown together last minute.

Pro: Ooooh K so the giant meat statue isn't a cross it's a Bull with giant muscles. Well, when Jason looks at it, that's what he sees, so that's what the meat statue is.

Con: The sacrifice scene, I'm willing to say this may be the first time in True Blood history where I feel like the plot isn't funny or fun crazy, it's just kind of mean crazy. Like "let's see if we can get our actors to actually do this" mean. I railed against ERW last week for half assedly phoning in her Queen. When compared to the rest of the cast who give their all to sell the whole vampire and crazy sex party insanity, ERW's previous lack of sincerity made the whole Queen business seem fake. I think the reverse of this is happening right now. When the scene is so tremendously bad no matter how hard characters' commitment to the insanity it makes the viewer wince and feel uncomfortable. I was exceedingly uncomfortable. Not convincing your parents to give True Blood a try with a seemingly mild episode but forgetting then slowly remembering that what you're watching is the episode with the very loud grave dirt sex moment and thinking of excuses to sneak before said scene, uncomfortable, but close. This was demonstrated by Lafayette climbing on top of the meat womb and yelling "worship him bitches!" Yeah super funny in print but watching my favorite character climb on top of that messy meat heap and yell out was . . . weird. This is my finale? This is my grand moment of True Blood vampire blood sex and magic awesomeness? Worship him bitches? Yeah no thanks.

Con: Maryann's little history lesson. Mind . . . wandering . . . I wonder what that whole Kanye beef was about maybe I'll channel flip super fast....

Con...oh no wait the meat cross is a giant uterus with the sacred Egg inside it, literally.

Pro: Breaking the sacred egg. Good. Good riddance to confusing worthless McGuffin.

Con: Eggs did not stab himself as I predicted.

Pro: The magic light fingers have returned.

Con: So have Maryann's magical powers of claw hands and head mice squeals.

Pro: WHAT THE FUCK DID MY EYES JUST SEE. Maryann sees her cow husband and goes to him, for the sex. Cause sure. She opens up her body and bull gores her in her stomach and Maryann just won't shut up until SURPRISE its Sam, and there is no god, literally. Naked Sam crushes her heart with his fist. Now this is crazy done right. Thank you for that True Blood. This is the kind of crazy I can respect, because at least all the crazy makes a half sense as opposed to some writer thinking it's a good idea to introduce an egg with no real significance other than to have everyone lick it.

Con: Sam being magically healed by Bill's blood was way too easy and fast. That whole thing felt kind of cheap it all happened off stage you can't see if one over crap. He was stabbed in the heart after all, doesn't that mean death?

Pro: Maybe Sam drinking Bill's blood will mean that he'll start having sex dreams about Bill? Which I would like to see.

Con: Bill is all drained and sickly and Sookie turns to him, get rid of the body dead thing! Already with the orders my goodness you were just holding him, not even a little wrist biting to give him a perk up? And get those damn kids off my lawn.

Con: So that's what a Maenad looks like dead. Huh.

Pro: Mean Hoyt is just as interesting and sexy as nice Hoyt. I like where this is going. Tell your momma off Hoyt - now let's go get milk shakes and cry about it.

Pro: Awkward lawn party.

Con: Sam sees a deer and cries because he remembered that other deer he used to have sex with, then he pictured Bill with antlers.

Con: Eggs is smile crying with no real tears. How did he survive this? Eggs you were supposed to die so I wouldn't have moments like this anymore.

Con: Tara apologizes to Sookie. Where was this last episode, you selfish twit? Remember when you bailed on us for the spaz over by the sink?

Con: I highly doubt Sookie would be spending the night in her bed with all that nasty sex juice and meat bed. Just sayin - wash it first.

Pro: Charlaine Harris cameo at the bar, yay! You rule Harris, good to see her getting cred, this is the kind of stuff that belongs in a finale. And I would have to agree with you dear, I did not see the town folk building a giant meat uterus in Sookie's front yard ever happening either. Whew.

Con: Charlaine as much as you fight the Twilight comparisons why would you let them cameo you the same way Stephanie Meyer cameod in Twilght....they are pretty similar.

Pro: Arlene's kids being smarter than her, but Terry being the sweetest of them all.

Pro: Let the spinning begin: it's aliens, no LSD no Ethanol! Maryann Forrester does rhyme with Martian Foreigner so it all makes sense, damn that liberal media and their meddling. Don't let Bon Temps become San Francisco. Nice moment.

Pro: Gigantic pro for serving Mountain Dew in a pitcher. That's how we rolled in my family way back in the day. I don't care if it was a blatant sponsorship ad, I know plenty of people that drink this yellow nectar for every meal. In fact I just ate at a restaurant in Missouri that serves you your drink in a big gulp and it was delicious and I loved every moment of it. Now quick pass me the last chicken nugget.

Pro: "I'd wear him like a scrunchie."

Pro: Second only to the way Andy says, "It's DIET Coke with LIIIIIIIIME."

Pro: Sam calling Andy Bubbah. Did ya catch that?

Pro: Bill sends Sookie a dress with a letter!!!!!!! He writes like he talks!!!!! I Gigantic I's and odd statements. Do you think he writes like this everywhere like household notes. "JESSICUH We are in great need of Draino. I tire of clogged showahs. Can you collect some upon your next visit to the shop? I would also very much like some old spice red stripe if that's not too much to aaaask. Eric is evil. Vampire Bill."

Con: Eggs big reveal in his brain is a bunch of shit we already knew.

Pro: Jessica is back - about time. Save us from this episode Jessica. And how adorable are these two acting together!

Con: Bill hasn't been to a French restaurant in over 70 years, because he's a vampire, in case you forgot.

Con: All this Sam returning home to his family business. Not necessary. I know you have a next season. Just have him say, I'm going to go find my real family, and then he drives off. End Scene. This did not need to be another 15 minutes of nothingness. I care so little about his adopted family issues.

Con: Evil Jessica is back wahoo! This is clearly setup for the next year, and is kind of annoying because it doesn't really say much about their relationship which is all still really new. It's still a great plot twist with a lot of potential. First off Bill and her are finally getting along, so that will all be shot to hell, and what if she bites Hoyt, or fights him, or goes back to him while secretly feeding behind his back because she's addicted to the taste and hates Tru Blood. Five seconds of Jessica time and I'm already infinitely more excited for the next season. More Jessica please.

Pro: Seeing Vampire Bill dancing is like watching a cat walk on its hind legs. I can't rip my eyes away from it but I don't understand it.

Con: The second I heard that Bill had rented the place out and saw Sookie all dressed up with Mom hair I knew he was going to propose, I just knew it in my gut. And I knew Sookie would respond like a brat because that is who she is and she had gone 15 minutes without being horrible. Though I had forgotten the ridiculous Vermont is where the gays, I mean vampires can get married. Tell me again about how this show isn't about gay rights, Ball?

Pro: Still I was all yay yay clappy clappy when Bill pulled out the box, because that too is sadly also in my gut and I melted like butter and wished the make up artist had gone a little easier with the white yet again on Bill cheek bones, even though I was kinda bored with the whole thing.

This is what Yay clappy clappy looks like thanks to the brilliant phnuggle. You are my hero!!!!!!

Pro: Anyone else secretly wish that Sookie called for Eric in the bathroom? That's certainly spice things up a bit, he'd come too.

Pro: The best part of this finale. EGGS IS DEAD. If you dream it, it can happen people.

Pro: Now Jason is all entangled in another wacky death shenanigan, but nobody is going to care, because it's Eggs. It was his time. In memoriam for Eggs, Tara smile cries:

And that's it there ain't no more. Well, actually someone kidnaps Bill with gloves and silver because we need a big fat scary cliff hanger for the next season, but unfortunately for them you and I are not idiots. And we know they aren't going to kill off Bill. So nice try Mr. Ball. We're on to your tricks.

How do I feel about this episode as a whole? While it was pretty poorly stitched together with plenty of hits and misses and no real winning Jason line, it's still True Blood. I'm just going to pretend that the whole first half didn't even happen, because it's just easier that way. It's a shame we didn't get to see the Newlins, Pam or more Eric one last time, but I hope they all stick around for another season. All in all I love this show, with all of my heart. They brought me dirt sex people and flying vampires and teacup humans. I have nothing but love. Yes, of course the final was going to try and take it to the biggest extreme ever and they succeeded with the cow arm gore death. But it kind of floundered throughout the rest of the episode making shit up for no reason. It almost, almost ruined Eggs death for me but when you've wanted something this badly for this long it still feels to watch him face up in a puddle of his own yolk. Ah egg pun.

I wish they would have spent a little more time saying goodbye to this season as opposed to just tying up lose ends and moving ahead with the cliffhangers. But I'll never forget the egg licking no matter how much it didn't work, because they tried to go there and it was, well crazy True Blood. I will miss you and see you next summer. And Ryan Kwanten, you deserve the gold vampire star of the season.