Let's start with Electropolis, the new Dark Horse collection of Dean Motter's Retrofuture Deco Noir story (Preview here). Filled with robot detectives, femme fatales and the power of electricity, it's just one of many off-beat genre books appearing at comic book stores this week.

And if Electropolis' pulp fiction is your thing, then maybe the Batman/Doc Savage Special (Dark Knight Detective versus Man of Bronze!) will also float your boat, after all. Or maybe Sky Doll: Doll Factory, a collection of unseen material from the awesome European strip Sky Doll, will provide your reading material for the next few days.

But if you prefer your heroines a little less suggestible than Sky Doll, the first issue of Tank Girl: Skidmarks is probably more your speed. Unsurprisingly, we'd also point you in the direction of the debut of Locke & Key: Crown of Shadows, but we're biased.

Maybe you're looking for something you've already seen in major motion pictures? That's okay; not only is there a preview issue of the new series of Wall-E, but there's also Star Wars Purge: Seconds To Die, which follows a young Darth Vader killing off as many Jedi as possible, post Revenge of The Sith. And that's not all! There's also a paperback collection of DC/Wildstorm's recent The X-Files series.

For those who can't get enough of those superheroes, then I'd recommend the first issue of Warren Ellis' Supergod, his latest "What if superheroes were bastards?" series. Or, on the opposite end of the superhero spectrum, the Absolute Justice hardcover, collecting Alex Ross' expansive love letter to the Super Friends (No, really).

In between those two extremes, there's Dynamite's Project Superpowers: The Black Terror Vol. 1 collection, DC's Green Lantern: Agent Orange collection, which leads into the current Blackest Night storyline, Supergirl: Who Is Superwoman? (in which Sterling Gates and Jamil Igle manage to undo years of abuse and make Supergirl a likable, working character again - good job, people) and the Authority: The Lost Year Reader (reprinting Grant Morrison and Gene Ha's two completed issues of their abandoned run, ahead of Keith Giffen and other artists aiming to complete the story in their absence).

There's also Marvel's PunisherMax (Yes, one word. It's the new "mature readers" title for the character, and maybe Marvel thinks pushing words together is more adult?), Green Hulk/Red Hulk collection (Heroes' writer Jeph Loeb writes a couple of gamma-irradiated monsters in a couple of adventures), the first issue of Strange (Mark Waid's reboot of the former Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme). And also, there's all manner of X-Men books: the Dark Avengers/X-Men: Utopia collection, as well as collections of Wolverine: Tales of Weapon X, Wolverine Weapon X: Adamantium Men and Wolverine/Gambit. All your Wolverine needs should definitely be met this week, let's face it.

If there are any other needs looking unserviced, I'd recommend checking out the complete list of books shipping from Diamond Distributors this week, and then remembering that your local comic book store can be found here. If this week seems overly expensive, don't worry; there's an entire skip week at the end of the year to get some of that money back. Look at it as a loan. Or something.

BEST:

Spot, Data's Orange Tabby Cat from Star Trek: The Next Generation
Who: Data's number 1 friend that didn't wear a Devo-esque visor on his face.
Why he's awesome: He's probably one of the only cats in the universe that has an infinitely advanced AI at his beck and call.
Bonus points: Anything that pisses Riker off is a big plus in my book.

Willis the Bouncer from Robert Heinlein's Red Planet
Who: A sound mimicking furry ball that every kid should have as a friend.
Why he's awesome: In a 1960's era future, when a dog just won't cut it, the only way to really impress the kids at school is with an alien that doubles as a soccer ball. And here's a clip from the Fox miniseries adaptation.

R2D2, Star Wars
Who: The yin to C3PO's (annoying) yang that brings logic and light to any situation through a series of flickering lights and bleeps.
Why he's awesome: He's a moving trashcan that manages to be more likeable than most of the Star Wars palz extended cast.

Porthos, Captain Archer's Beagle from Enterprise
Who: Easily one of the more tolerable characters on Enterprise. Mostly because he didn't talk.
Why he's awesome: He's a beagle! How can beagles not be cute? Also, I feel like after the unfortunate Scotty related transporter incident, he deserves a nice memorial.

Ampersand, Y the Last man
Who: The world's ending, every man is dead, you're an aspiring escape artist pining away for your lost girlfriend and you're all alone. What do you do? Have crazy monkey antics with your favorite jungle friend with a punctuation mark as a name.
Why he's awesome: Not to spoil too much, but he may or may not be humanity's key to getting the XY's back in action.

Lockjaw
Who: Marvel's own alien bulldog and member of the non-human branch of the Avengers.
Why he's awesome: He's super strong, can eat anything and once latched onto the Thing.

Dog the Robot from Half Life 2
Who: Alyx Vance's No.1 go to robotic buddy who helps when your path is blocked by other dimensional beings or just wants to play fetch with your grav gun.
Why he's awesome: He's a giant robot with the personality of a dog. Do you need more?

Pen Pen, from Neon Genesis Evangelion
Who: A genetically altered super smart penguin that lives with Misato Katsuragi during the Angel apocalypse.
Why he's awesome: While the series has moments of intense despair and darkness, you can always count on jerky, anime humor involving naked people and penguins to brighten your day.

K-9 from Doctor Who
Who: Dr Who's multi-generational robotic canine companion.
Why he's awesome: He's gotten a series of spinoff stories and was even parodied on South Park.

Nibbler from Futurama
Who: Nibbler is part of an ancient race of Nibblonians who protect the universe from giant glowing brains that make everyone stupid. Er, Stupid-er.
Why he's awesome: He can eat about 1,000 times his body mass to, uh, produce dark matter.

Gaspode, from Terry Prachett's Discworld series
Who: A talking dog with human intelligence that attempts to bring "Hollywood" to Discworld.
Why he's awesome: He's an endless source of snarky remarks and regularly uses his speech to manipulate humans when he needs food.

CJ-7
Who: A puff ball with a body that guaranteed to produce family friendly fun times.
Why he's awesome: CJ-7 can help you repair torn relationships with certain parental figures and bring people back from the dead.

Einstein, Doc Brown's dog from Back to the Future
Who: You might be under the impression that a certain Family Ties alum might be the Doc's best time traveling friend in this series, but you'd be wrong. This adorable little terrier follows Doc whenever her goes.
Why he's awesome: As long as you ignore the craptacular animated television series, Einstein is always cute, helpful and never obnoxious.

Ein, Cowboy Bebop
Who: A super brained corgie that gets stranded on the Bebop.
Why he's awesome: Although they never really get into it in the series, Ein is a "data dog" that possesses super intelligence that allows him to answer phones and steer cars.

Bubastis, Ozymandias' lynx from Watchmen
Who: When you're a super genius David Bowie impersonator with the world at your fingertips what do you do next? You create a genetically engineered psychedelic colored lynx as a companion.
Why he's awesome: He takes one for the team for the sake of furthering an evil plan for his master.

Gizmo, Gremlins
Who: The main furry faced protagonist of the Gremlins series.
Why he's awesome: While I'm pretty much a fan of all the gremlins, I can't deny the greatness that is Gizmo channeling his inner Rambo.

Seymour from Futurama
Who: Seymour is a part of one of the most tear jerking episodes of Futurama involving Fry recounting the story of the most loyal dog that ever lived.
Why he's awesome: Did you see the last scene? He's the most loyal dog that ever lived! Also, we can rest easy knowing that alternate timeline Fry gave Seymour a great life.

Bronx from Gargoyles
Who: Bronx is the dog version of the Manhattan gargoyle clan. During the whole series you only see one other gargoyle beast, but unlike Budeka, Bronx gets a whole episode devoted to him befriending an Amish kid.
Why he's awesome: Gargoyles are already pretty high on the cool supercreatures scale, but add a dog personality to the mix, and you've got gold.

Roach from WALL-E
Who: They weren't lying when they said that after the world ended there would be nothing left but cockroaches. Fortunately, the end of the world also gave them charming personalities!
Why he's awesome: Making me want a roach as a pet is an epic win in my book.

Kevin and Dug from Up
Who: Kevin is a rare, brilliantly colored giant bird that Carl and Russell accidentally find in Paradise Falls. Dug is sweet golden retriever with a collar that allows him to talk.
Why they're awesome: It takes a lot to make slapstick giant birds funny, but Pixar does a magnificent job. And Dug? He's exactly what I imagine an actual talking dog to sound like. SQUIRREL!

WORST:

Tribbles from Star Trek
Who: Fuzzy, purring little meat pets that take over the original Enterprise.
Why they suck: Pets rocks were bad enough, why would they think that a massively multiplying furry pet rock would be better?

ALF
Who: Alien puppet that takes over a really lame sitcom in the 80's. If ever you want to torture someone without the use of waterboarding, show them and episode of ALF… or Small Wonder.
Why he sucks: Look me straight in the eye and tell me you didn't scream in horror when you saw that clip.

Snarf, Thundercats
Who: A fat alien cat that ends every sentence with an annoying "snarf!" sound.
Why he sucks: Is he a lizard or a cat? I'm going to go with meth induced demonic lovechild.

Teddy from A.I.
Who: An animatronic intelligent Teddy Rucksbin from the future that accompanies David in a search for the Blue Fairy.
Why he sucks: Ok, now I understand that some people might take issue with Teddy's position on the worst list but he's a toy that's alive. That's pretty much the worst nightmare of most 8-year-old kids. And me.

Slimer from Ghostbusters
Who: A green ghost that terrorizes the Ghostbusters team by covering everything in slime.
Why he sucks: For those of us born in the mid 80's and watched the Ghostbusters cartoon first, we expected to see cool ghost antics when we finally saw the movie. Instead, we were greeted with a grotesque blob that was pretty evil.

Div-x from Penny Arcade
Who: You might remember the Sony Dix-X player, an ahead of its time technical marvel.
Why he sucks: According to Penny Arcade Comics, he's a foul-mouthed drunk that's teetering on the edge of killing us all.

Pets from Children of Men
Who: When the world's gone infertile, people turn to animals to provide comfort in the end of humanity.
Why they suck: I have nothing against the animals in Children of Men, personally, but seeing all the dogs, cats and birds cluttering people's homes can be an ominous image.

Selacious Crumb from Star Wars
Who: He's a little fox-lizard thing that hangs out with Jabba the Hut and laughs at all his lame jokes.
Why he sucks: Everybody hates the skinny jerk in the corner with the stupid laugh.

Gleek from Superfriends
Who: The alien monkey pet of the Wondertwins.
Why he sucks: Usually if he was featured in Superfriends, you could count on him popping out to end the episode on a lame joke.

Independence Day Dog from Independence Day
Who: If you're like me then you probably laughed at the idea of a ball of flame chasing a golden retriever down a tunnel.
Why he sucks: Was it really necessary to have a slow motion explosion behind a dog? And wouldn't all that heat ultimately cook them all in that storage locker?
Then Again:...he's immune to explosions. And that's pretty cool. Dodging fire like that, he's like a canine Neo. Maybe he should have been best?

Space Buddies
Why they suck: I'll just point you in the direction of this.

Queequeg, X-files
Who: A Pomeranian adopted by Dana Scully and eaten shortly after by the legendary Big Blue.
Why he sucks: He was found snacking on his previous owner.

Krypto
Who: Superman's dog. Enough said.
Why he sucks: I hate pet versions of superheroes. Also, why does he need a cape?

Muffit from the original Battlestar Gallactica
Who: Caprica used to have a variety of tracker dogs but sadly, none of them survived the Cylon attack. Instead a group robotic dogs are created to replace them.
Why he sucks: Is he an ewok? A fuzzy, metallic gremlin on meth? You decide.

MAD Cat from Inspector Gadget
Who: Dr. Claw's chortling fat feline.
Why he sucks: He's the quintessential evil cat meant to taunt the hero. Plus Dr. Claw regularly beat the crap out of him and he seemed to be ok with that.

Frank the Dog from Men in Black
Who: An alien stool pigeon using the guise of a small pug.
Why he sucks: He made me remember "Who Let the Dogs Out" existed.

Gir, Invader Zim
Who: Invader Zim's mentally disturbed robot helper that was given to him as either a joke or sabotage. Probably both.
Why he sucks: Yeah, yeah Gir is really cute, but he's amoral, evil and would gladly watch you die a fiery death while bursting into a fit of giggles.

Astro, The Jetsons
Who: The Scooby Doo knockoff of the 21st century.
Why he sucks: It might have worked with the Scooby Gang, but there's only room for one charismatic dog with a speech impediment ‘round these parts.

Lamar, Half Life 2
Who: The neutered headcrab that resides in Dr. Isaac Kleiner's laboratory.
Why he sucks: Crabs are rarely a good thing. Head crabs are a double whammy of bad.

Joshua from Dark Angel
Who: A transgenic dog-man with an affinity for painting and crappy comedic timing.
Why he sucks: There was only one good thing that came out of season two of Dark Angel and that rhymes with Smensen Shackles.

Honorable Mention: Blarp from the Lost in Space remake.

Yes, the Wonder Twins are back with this San Diego Comic-Con-only toy set including Zan, Jayna, Gleek and accompanying Zan in form of water and Jayna in shape of a giant eagle (Zan and Jayna will be available from Mattel's website after the show, but you won't be able to get that damn monkey anywhere else). While we're happy to see the creepy twins return - well, slightly happy, at least - we're not sure how we feel about their new look. Were they always so... buff?

Mattel Announces SDCC09 Exclusives [Action Figure Insider]

Okay, so it may be a fan-made mash-up, but it's also more enjoyable than the actual Watchmen trailer itself. Don't believe me? Watch the two together:

I think you're convinced.

Watchfriends [YouTube]

We've tried to stay away from sounds made by an actual character, like Soundwave's awesome voice from The Transformers, or Darth Vader's breathing from Star Wars. Note: click on the name to hear the sound effect.

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• Spaceships in the 1950s: Back in the heady days of early science fiction movies, the Theremin (probably one of the coolest instruments ever invented) would provide the "Ooooh-EEEEE-oooooh" sounds of spaceships flitting about in the sky and other spooky paranormal sounds. It tended to be overused, and instantly became identifiable with cheesy scifi. If we ever get our own office Theremin, this is the first sound we'd ever make on it.
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• The Alien Heat Ray from War of the Worlds: In the original 1953 movie, the alien heat ray has an awesome cycling sound buried within the sound of the beam. We hope a real heat ray blast sounds this way some day — and we may have found our new cell phone ringtone.
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• The Alien Probe from War of the Worlds: This terrifying sound is one of those things you'd imagine from under the covers as a kid. Nothing is more "wet the bed" inducing than a good, scary scifi sound effect. Cursed alien probes.
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• The automatic doors from Star Trek: These doors were one of the most iconic sounds from The Original Series, and were even parodied by Shatner himself in Airplane II.
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• The communicating whistles and doorbells of Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation: While the old Star Trek communicator used to make a sort of wolf-whistle sound at you, the doorbells on The Next Generation were crisp and punctual. How many people out there are using these as ringtones today?
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• The transporter beam from Star Trek: Besides the doors, this was another one of the sounds most identified with Star Trek. The original beaming sound is a bit dated, but still retro cool and... long. It took so much time for them to appear that you wonder why their enemies were ever caught off guard.
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• The Bionic sounds of The Six Million Dollar Man: Whether he was using his bionic strength to toss a tree out of the way, spy on folks with his bionic peeper, or jumping over something with smooth Wonder Woman-esque bionic legs, Colonel Steve Austin cornered the market on iconic sound effects. Even though it's cheesy, we still love this sound.
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• The lightsaber from Star Wars: Even above blasting lasers and beeping droids, the lightsaber is the most identifiable sound to come out of the Star Wars universe. In fact, you've probably used a flashlight to make a lightsaber in the smoke from your campfire, and made these same noises with your mouth, admit it.
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• A TIE Fighter passing by from Star Wars: For some reason, the wailing sound of a TIE Fighter was much cooler than the whining engine sound of an X-Wing, or the "whoomph" sound effect of the Millennium Falcon. It still sounds very alien, and creepy cool.
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• This video shows off the Top 10 sound effects from Star Wars, but half of them are character based, which we've stayed away from in this post, i.e. Darth Vader's breathing, R2-D2's beeping and booping, etc. However, those seismic charges were admittedly pretty damn cool, and just check out the lightsaber montage at the end.
  
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• The Cylon Eye from Battlestar Galactica: Probably the most iconic sound from Battlestar Galactica, the 70s edition was the scanning sound of the Cylon eye. My brother and I used to hide behind the couch when they'd come onscreen and talk in their awesome vocoder voices.
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• The DRADIS from Battlestar Galactica: In the new series, they spend so much time staring at this thing that the sound becomes embedded in your head. Of course, it does tell them if something is about to vaporize their ass, so we can understand why.
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• K.I.T.T.'s scanner eye from Knight Rider: Owing a lot to those cyclops-esque Cylon eyes was the scanner that both signified that K.I.T.T.'s scanner was active, and also served as his "heartbeat."
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• The TARDIS taking off and landing from Doctor Who: The TARDIS had several sound effects: the whirring of the doors, the hum of the control room, the flying through space sound... but the most popular noise that endures to this day was the sound of it materializing and dematerializing. If you pick up this Electronic Flight Control Tardis, you can have them all at your fingertips on your desktop.
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• The Sonic Screwdriver from Doctor Who: The Doctor's multi-purpose tool that seems to be able to do just about anything has its own sound, and it's changed a bit over the years. In fact, you can pick up your very own sonic screwdriver, complete with sound effects. Just don't complain when it fails to make money spew out of the ATM machine.
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• The transforming sound from Transformers: Whenever Optimus Prime, Megatron, Jazz, or Soundwave would transform into their alter-egos, this sound accompanied them, and buried itself in the brains of billions of kids around the world. It still makes me think I can turn into something different whenever I hear it.
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• The Wonder Twin Powers, Activating, from The Superfriends: Okay, we're breaking our own rule with this one, since it's character based, but we just love the cheesy music/SFX behind Zan and Jayna activating their lame superpowers. They really need their own campy show these days.
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Super Friends: Worried about potential accusations of jingoism, ABC didn't think Justice League of America had the right ring as the title for its 1973 Saturday morning JLA cartoon. But judging by the seven name changes that the series went through in its 13-year run, obviously Super Friends wasn't the right choice either.

Despite character designs by animation giant Alex Toth, this Hanna-Barbera series was limited by some shitty animation and even shittier storylines, even when Jack Kirby's Darth Vader-prototype Darkseid came in to mess with the heroes in later seasons. The show's main drawback, however, may have been the kid sidekicks forced upon the heroes by worried TV executives; Wonder Twins Zan and Jayna may have been annoying, but they were nothing compared to the non-powered Marvin and Wendy. And don't get me started on Wonderdog.

Legends Of The Superheroes: Oh, Adam West, must everything you touch turn to camp? Apparently, if this 1979 two-part live-action special (also starring Burt Ward as a somewhat older than usual Robin, as well as Ed McMahon as himself) is anything to go by. If the laugh track on both shows wasn't enough to let you know that things weren't being taken too seriously, the fact that the second episode of the series was a roast in honor of Batman where brain-dead undead villain Solomon Grundy kept punching Ed McMahon every time he said the word "swamp" might clue you in to the abuse the Justice League endured in their prime-time debut.

Justice League of America: Things, of course, could get worse. This 1997 live-action pilot for a show that thankfully never got produced focused around the successful late-80s version of the comic devoid of big names - that's how we got M*A*S*H's David Ogden Stiers as green-skinned leader J'Onn J'Onzz, fighting Miguel Ferrer's villainous meteorologist, The Weatherman. Not so much camp as just plain bad, this show was unaired in the States, but ended up getting released to unlucky viewers overseas as a TV movie.

Justice League/Justice League Unlimited: Leave it to the animators to finally get it right. The five year run of Justice League — which changed format twice, and name once, during that time — was brought to the Cartoon Network in 2001 by the people who'd created the groundbreaking Batman cartoon in the 1990s, and used stories by animation and comics veterans (including Warren Ellis and Wonder Woman's Gail Simone) to create with a show that was as respectful to the fans as it was friendly to a regular audience. It also featured classic scifi actors (including Mark Hamill, Michael Ironside, Rob Zombie and almost everyone who had ever appeared in a Joss Whedon show. Also, Ed Asner played Granny Goodness, which always amuses me.)

With some of that show's staff behind New Frontier — as well as working on more direct-to-DVD animated features for DC — it's good to know that, even if George Miller does go ahead with casting Seth Cohen as Wally West in the live action movie, there's still potential for some good Justice League movies in our future.