Variety reported that Columbia Pictures is planning the return of the flaming-headed pile of film that is Ghost Rider, with David Goyer in talks to write the script, and the man with the flaming head and crazy eyes Nicolas Cage on tap to return. Well, at least Goyer is one step in the right direction for this franchise.

Buried in the story was also the news that Fox is also working on bringing a new Daredevil film, plus the long-awaited Silver Surfer solo film, back from development hell. We're very excited about the Silver Surfer news, but it's going to take us a long while to unsee the Ben Affleck Daredevil.

A new Predator movie, with or without a post-governorship Arnold Schwarzenegger? Why not. A new Fantastic Voyage remake? In development. (And it won't be as campy as the original, he promises.) A sequel to Hitman? Maybe. A new Die Hard movie? "Never say never." A third X-Files movie, in spite of the second one's poor showing? It's entirely up to Chris Carter. A stand-alone Silver Surfer movie, building on Fantastic Four 2? It's in the pipeline. Independence Day 2? If Roland Emmerich wants to do it, Fox is on board.

And, as previously reported, Rothman also told IESB he's already thinking of Avatar in terms of "franchise potential," so we could be seeing Avatar 2 or 3, directed by someone else, in a few years. And then there's the Daredevil reboot, which is "something we are thinking very seriously about."

To be fair, at least half of the above-listed projects are probably just being tossed around or just not being "ruled out." But if even half those films get made, and other studios think the same way, our current deluge of contempt-breeding familiarity could look like a trickle by comparison. [IESB]

As a follow-up to the hit Thundercats and the accompanying bonanza in toy sales, Lorimar went ahead with Silverhawks. The campy style actually ages quite well, and the themes of economic regulation and corruption in the corporate sector, well, they resonate.

J. Larry Carroll, the show's producer, later created the CBS procedural Diagnosis Murder, and penned a Stargate episode, "Hathnor". The show's interplanetary setting owes a lot to The Silver Surfer, and its unique world lends it just a little originality, most conspicuously in the vast assemblage of villains the heroes have to toy with.

After they sacrificed their human bodies, the Silverhawks are under the grip of the bald, officious, and poorly voiced Commander Stargazer. Their primary nemesis was the devastating Mon*Star, commanded a ferocious army of signifiers referred to conspicuously as a "mob."

The evil Yes Man's villainy is pernicious and long term, and involves handing out loans and flying places on golden parachutes. Like Dick Cheney, Yes Man has a long and dangerous tail/penis. Mo-Lec-U-Lar and Windhammer are the titans of energy, wild, but mightily powerful.

Even Mon*Star has trouble controlling the behavior of the titans of industry. Buzzsaw and Hardware command the technology and weapons sectors, and they're rapidly spiralling out of everyone's control. Pokerface and Melodia are the twin industries in dire need of regulation: gambling and digital rights management. I suppose Mumbo Jumbo ("the strong man") would be their lawyer.

The irony is that the series itself was an expression of capitalist desire, trying to capitalize on a trend while it was still hot. And out of all such gestures of greed, good may yet rise:

You can find parts two and three of the pilot here and here.

Release of the week (if you exclude Oni Press' brilliant, worth-30-bucks, and totally non-SF Local hardcover) is probably Dark Horse's first two trade paperback collections of Astro Boy. These give new fans a very cheap ($14.95 for 400+ pages each) chance to experience Osamu Tezuka's wonderful series for themselves, in advance of the upcoming movie version. Almost equally recommended is the final issue of DC's All Star Superman series, wherein Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly demonstrate the eternal power of the Man of Steel even after killing him off last issue.

Dark Horse also offers Abe Sapien Volume 1: The Drowning for fans of Hellboy's merman best buddy, and DC are going for the topicality vote with the first issue of DCU: Decisions, in which we get to find out whether Batman is really a Republican or not once and for all, because... well, God knows why, really. If you're looking for a better way to spend your DC-bound dollars, consider the worth of Superman: Kryptonite, a new hardcover collecting a story by The New Frontier's Darwyn Cooke and Heroes's Tim Sale about Superman's first run-in with the glowing green stuff.

Over at the House of Ideas, they're pretty much taking the week off, unless you're looking for stories about kid supergroup Power Pack (They have both their Skulls vs series and a digest collection of Day One out this week). Jeff Parker and Paul Tobin's fun retro mini The Age Of The Sentry debuts, and the Silver Surfer gets an unfortunately somber, humorless send-off in the paperback version of Silver Surfer: Requiem. Much more fun can be found in Red5 Comics' Abyss, which releases its first collection this week.

If you're hit by the desire to see what else is going to be hitting your store shelves this week, you should head here, before checking out the Comic Shop Locator Service to locate your local comic store. Just remember to style your hair in an appropriately pointed direction before going in, just to honor everyone's favorite atomic pinocchio.

Proyas told fans at Comic-Con that his main reason for staying away from the Fantastic Four spin-off was who was making it, and he repeated that to MTV:

[I]t’s a Fox picture, [a]nd I’m determined never to work with them ever again because of my experience on ‘I,Robot.’

But that's not the only reason he's turning the project down, it seems. Another reason was the crappiness of the Surfer's first appearance, in Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer:

It’s like the origin of Silver Surfer was in that movie, and I’m going, ‘This is such a f–king great story, why throw it away?’ ...I think they messed it up.

You and the rest of the cinema-going public, Alex. Would it really have killed them to give us a giant man with a huge purple helmet instead of the flashing storm thing? ...Wait. I should probably rephrase that.

Does this mean that Proyas is going to stay away from superhero movies from now on? Perhaps, he says:

You know, there aren’t that many left. Silver Surfer would have been something I would have loved to have done. He’s one of the last cool ones left, really.

Dude, you did The Crow; I think you've done enough. In more ways than one.

Alex Proyas Explains Chilly Fox Relationship Means He’ll Never Direct Silver Surfer Movie [Splash Page]

Marvel Comics leads the movie tie-ins with a couple of Hulk-related books. The wonderfully-named Hulk: Raging Thunder brings back Thundra (A superstrong Amazon who hated anything with a penis but had a crush on the Fantastic Four’s Ben Grimm, making you wonder about his particularly rocky manhood, and no, I promise I’m not making this up) and gives her a large green specimen of the less fair sex to beat up on. Gender issues have rarely been this violent, true believer! Luckily, the second gamma-irradiated launch this week deals with much more traditional superhero fare, like absent fathers and aliens having stupid names: Skaar, Son of Hulk spins out of the year-long “Planet Hulk” storyline and stars the half-alien bastard son of Bruce Banner’s alter ego, a teenager with green skin and smashing on his adolescent mind as he deals with life in outer space. How can you resist?

(Marvel’s really concentrating on the SF this week – They’re also putting out an anthology of Secret Invasion-related shorts called Who Do You Trust?, the first issue of a new series based on Jack Kirby’s awesome Eternals, a trade of the first half of Kirby’s run on that title, and a collection of the recent, zen, Silver Surfer series, In Thy Name. There’s also a hardback collection of the last Marvel Zombies series, as well. Yes, they are trying to bankrupt you.)

Dark Horse are also concentrating on the tie-in dollar, with a raft of Hellboy product. If the first issue of a new series starring Hellboy’s (former) employers, the BPRD, isn’t enough for you (It’s called War on Frogs, which should really be all you need to know), then there’s also a set of three miniature plastic figures of characters from the series. There's also the Hellboy Book and Figure Set, putting together a Hellboy action figure and hardback digest version of Hellboy's first adventure to make the perfect gift for the Guillermo Del Toro fan in your life.

DC, meanwhile, are throwing their weight behind The Joker: The Greatest Stories Ever Told (a collection of stories from the history of Heath Ledger’s favorite Bat-villain.) Plus the first issue of the comic book version of NBC’s Chuck, proving that… well, they’re not really all about the multimedia this week after all. Much more interesting from Superman’s home team is the hardcover collection The Question: The Five Books of Blood, bringing Greg Rucka’s lesbian noir hero into her own for all of you faceless fetishists out there. She used to be on the Batman cartoon, do you think that counts…?

As ever, the full list of this week’s releases can be found here, with your very own low-tech comic store GPS being found here. Just remember, make sure that you're only buying something that has at least an option taken out on it.

If you're not satisfied with Robin Williams' head, you can also get his eyes and arm (also from Bicentennial Man) as well as some sort of weird animatronic prop. Also on eBay:

• A ton of props from Southland Tales, including a belt worn by Sarah Michelle Gellar, Gellar's character's business card, an American flag, dog tags worn by Janeane Garofalo's soldier character and a wedding cake topper.
• A weird-ass tumbler that John Travolta drank out of in Battlefield Earth. Probably still coated in his saliva.
• A sign from the precog police station in Minority Report.
• A crew-member uniform from Star Trek: Generations You could wear it to a Halloween party. But instead you'll probably just keep it in an acid-free box and fondle it occasionally.
• The "tachyon admitter" the Fantastic Four used to separate the Silver Surfer from his surfboard in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.
• Conference-room furniture from the Transformers movie. Just think, you could, ummm... use it in your conference room.
• A rubber pick-axe and crampons from Alien vs. Predator.
• A sign, in some alien script, from Ultraviolet.
• A zombie plague victim mask from Resident Evil: Extinction.