Caleb Paullus' Super Not Super is a series of brief photo comics exploring the not-so-superheroic trials and tribulations of caped crusaders. Batman finds even he is not immune to the economic meltdown, the Flash fails at physical intimacy, and Catwoman unwinds with a little *ahem* catnip. Sadly, Wonder Woman and Supergirl couldn't be given anything more interesting to do than household chores.

You can read the full comics at Super Not Super.

[via Geekologie]

Sometimes, you just need an escape from the relentlessness of the Thanksgiving celebrations, and Hollywood has been there for you — at least, some years. Certainly, in recent years, there have always been a couple of oddball films coming out for T-Day — but in previous years, it was hit and miss. Here's the complete list of Thanksgiving counterprogramming of the past 25 years, including some stuff that's not science fiction but is in some sense genre film.

All movie titles link to IMDB or Box Office Mojo pages containing release dates:

1984

Supergirl A movie guaranteed to make you give thanks that you're never going to see it again — and a strong contender for the worst superhero film of all time. What I want to know is, what sort of guy sees his buddy blown thirty feet across the parking lot, and then decides to try and attack Supergirl using a switchblade?

1985

Rocky IV The good news is, it would inspire you to go get in shape after eating all that turkey and stuffing, thanks to one of the most classic training montages ever:

1986

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home The most fun of the original cast movies, this probably would have been a good one to escape to with your family. Although the famous "Shatner underwater" scene might have proved distressing.

Solarbabies I'm convinced there's something very broken about this post-apocalyptic rollerblading film, but at least on the surface it looks very wholesome. Except for the part where the woman with the huge shoulderpads says, "Lock it down and disembowel it."

1988

Cocoon: The Return I'm not sure anybody should have to deal with Steve Gutenberg on a full stomach.

1989

Back to the Future 2 Given that Marty McFly's mom gets bizarre breast implants and becomes Biff Tannen's bitch, this is definitely a good film for a family outing.

1990

Predator 2 The underrated cop drama/Predator attack movie starring Danny Glover... it's really not as bad as you remember.

Robot Jox This, on the other hand... giant mecha gladiators, fighting it out with chainsaw crotches and other armaments... this is what family is all about.

1992

The Crying Game Terrorists, thugs, and the great transgender panic of 1992. I bet you took your mom to see this one.

1994

Junior Pregnant Arnold Schwarzenegger, watching sentimental movies and crying a lot, will help you understand your own family. Really.

1995

Casino It's an underrated Scorsese classic, full of brutality and weirdness. Perfect Thanksgiving fare.

Nick of Time I may be the only person who saw this movie in the theater. Johnny Depp has 90 minutes to kill someone or other, or else Christopher Walken will kill someone or other. Mostly worth it to watch Depp and Walken overacting in a shopping mall. And for Walken saying, "I'll make you a sauce for that black Irish cocksucker's meat." I'm happy this and the Scorsese film were the main choices for Thanksgiving 1995.

1997

Alien Resurrection The whole time you're with your family, you can imagine you're actually hanging out with lesbian android Winona. Or you can just daydream about what this movie could have been if they'd filmed Joss Whedon's screenplay.

1998

Very Bad Things A sex worker gets killed at a bachelor party — and then things turn ugly. Probably just like your family gatherings. It does star Jon "Iron Man" Favreau, and it's directed by Peter "Hancock" Berg.

1999

End of Days Satan and Thanksgiving — and Arnie! They fit together perfectly! Satan is looking for his Bride... so it's about family and relationships and stuff.

2000

Unbreakable A horrific act of mass murder brings to light a guy who can find the rapists and creeps in our midst. It's light family entertainment — but it does deal with some real questions about the power of story. So yeah, probably a good one to get out of the house for.

Quills This, on the other hand — the Marquis De Sade! In full effect! I'm betting many of you dragged your entire family to see this.

2001

Black Knight Martin Lawrence gets zapped back to the Middle Ages, and presumably, goes medieval on their asses. Enough to make your entire family commit mass suicide, Heavens Gate-style.

The Devil's Backbone An early Guillermo Del Toro classic, and more proof that horror owns Thanksgiving. Your family doesn't deserve this movie.

2002

Solaris You could watch Steven Soderbergh's trippy-ass remake of Tarkovsky's classic while you're already wigged out on tryptophan. Why not?

Wes Craven Presents: They Or you could have seen this gem — they're coming for you!

2003

Timeline "Your father is in the 14th. century." Hey, maybe he can hang out with Martin Lawrence there!

2006

The Fountain And speaking of trippy movies when you're already stoned on tryptophan... at least your entire family will each have different opinions about what happened in this film.

Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny Jack Black! Rocking out! It's bound to make more sense than The Fountain.

2007

Hitman A video game adaptation about a guy who kills people and thwarts some vague conspiracy thing. Probably the purest example of counterprogramming ever.

The Mist Given the shocking, ultra-secret ending, this is an... interesting choice for a family occasion. If you don't want to be spoiled, don't watch this clip:

2008

Transporter 3 It's a threequel starring Jason Statham. How can it be bad?

Twilight You probably have at least one family member who's as creepy as Edward. So it's good to get some perspective.

2009

The Road And then we're up to this year's crop... this whole movie is as depressing as The Mist's ending. But at least it does have a genuinely pro-family message.

Ninja Assassin This is the film we'll probably actually be watching on T-day. Ninjas! Wachowskis! James McTeigue! Out-and-out mayhem!

Additional reporting by Mary Ratliff.

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.

The next year of DC's Superman family of comics will call back to some classic science fiction, according to the creators at Friday's Superman New Horizons panel. Talking about what's coming up in the second half of the World of New Krypton mini-series, co-author James Robinson said that "One of the things we're trying to acknowledge that there is a new planet in our solar system." To that end, co-author Greg Rucka explained, we can expect to see the Kryptonian survivors now living on the new planet of New Krypton stealing one of Jupiter's moons because they decide that their planet needs one.

Robinson continued,

At the end of #8, [obscure 1980s character] J'Emm Son of Saturn is going to appear... He's going to turn up saying 'Look, you've got to stop moving planets around the solar system.'

The cover for that issue may be somewhat familiar to classic fantasy fans, Rucka said:

Gary Frank's cover takes a classic Frank Frazetta trope and turns it into a classic science-fiction trope.

World of New Krypton isn't the only series to take inspiration from old favorites; Robinson described Geoff Johns' new Adventure Comics series as appealing to fans of classic sci-fi: "It reminds me of those great Ray Bradbury books set in the midwest." Series artist Francis Manipul added,

t's more of a charming book... It's a book that will cover a lot of age ranges. It's a lot more from the heart, it's a real change of pace from the other event books that're going on right now.

(Fans who miss Johns' Teen Titans should pick the series up; when asked who to expect in the book, he said "Superboy, Wonder Girl, Tim Drake, Bart Allen... The good Teen Titans.")

In the core titles of the franchise, September sees a crossover between Superman, Action Comics, Supergirl and World Of New Krypton called "Codename Patriot." Editor Matt Idleson explained,

As we've built up the Kryptonian side of what's going on with the storyline through the end of next year, so this builds up the Earth side.

The story will center around Lois's dad, General Lane, and his plan to save the planet from what he sees as the threat of thousands of Supermen running around. James Robinson promised that General Lane has "layers and layers of plans that build up to a big event in 2010.... Pieces will come together until we have our exciting event that you will all love, I promise... Every single character is affected in some way, no-one comes out unscathed."
Neither does real estate, according to Greg Rucka, who says that Superman and his Action Comics will cause trouble for Superman's home city in months to come:

James and I are planning the damage that we're going to do to Metropolis again. Wait. You guys don't know about the damage we're doing in the first place. Ixnay that part.

One thing you shouldn't expect, however, is an appearance from zombie children. When asked about the possibility that DC's linewide Blackest Night will turn supporting character Cat Grant's dead son into a murdering zombie, the panel reacted with nervous laughter before Geoff Johns finally said, "No plans right now."

Secret identities are sort of a messy idea. The definition is apparently a "persona developed in order to keep the true identity secret," which, okay, is a workable definition until you start asking questions like, "If Clark Kent developed Superman to protect his loved ones, is Supes the secret identity?" And, "After Ralph Dibny told the world he was Elongated Man, does that make his secret identity just an identity? And does that mean it's okay for his foes to call him Ralph when he's in costume?" Because as bad as it is being taken down by a guy who goes by "Elongated Man," it's probably even worse being brought to justice by some guy named Ralph.

So I was going to talk about why certain heroes use certain identities, but the more I thought about it, the more I feel that the real question how a superhero finds a way to make his hero identity and his everyman identity (because sometimes it's hard to tell which is really the secret one) work in tandem with each other.

(I'd like to apologize in advance if this list takes a decidedly DC-centric bent; I'm afraid I'm not as much of a Marvel person as I'd like to be yet.)

Exhibit A: Where the Two Identities are Essentially the Same Person
Let's start with the obvious, and look at Clark Kent and Superman. Whereas the opposite may have once held true, since the '80's or so, it's been generally accepted that Superman is the mask and Clark the real person, to simplify it a bit. At the same time, they're both fundamentally the same person, body language and projected self-confidence aside. And as to why Clark Kent chose to be a reporter, some people explain it away as being the natural choice, because it's easy to write stories about yourself. (This also being the general explanation for Peter Parker's chosen profession as well.) I think that's selling Clark (and Peter) a bit short, though. I much prefer the explanation that states that in his quest for Truth, Justice, and the American Way, Clark/Superman feels the need to do more than just punch things. Off an on, Superman will mention the fact that he wants to be more than just a blunt instrument, and perhaps working in a more investigative field as Clark Kent helps him feel he's reached this balance between brawn and brains.

Other superheroes who fit the category of essentially being the same person both in and out of their tights include people like both Green Arrows (especially Oliver Queen, who might just be the worst out there at keeping his secret identity plausibly secret). Actually, a very high proportion of the costumed crime-fighting community can probably be lumped into this category, probably because it's easier to consistently write characters that are a little more consistent with themselves. But if we choose to ignore the man behind the curtain, so to speak, we could probably say it's because they all want to protect their friends and loved ones by putting on a mask, thereby preserving their own identity, which, nine times out of ten, they had long before they took up superheroics.

Exhibit B: Where the Secret Identity Isn't All That Secret, After All
As previously mentioned, Ralph Dibny could be said to be the poster boy for the Public Secret Identity, being the first Silver Age superhero to go public with his civilian identity. To take a step like this puts him firmly into the category of guys whose two identities are the same person, but now that that's literally true, it's near impossible to draw any sort of line between Elongated Man and Ralph, since everyone knows they're the same person anyway. Maybe this is the most dangerous way for a superhero to go on the secret identity path, but you have to admit, it takes real guts. Take John Stewart, for example, the Green Lantern who chooses not to wear a mask because he feels he doesn't have anything to hide. Plus we've got Tony Stark. And the only people who don't know he's Iron Man are pretty much either dead or . . . Actually, you might have to be dead not to know.

Exhibit C: Where the Secret Identity Isn't Actually Anything Like You
This is where Batman comes in. About the same time that the world decided that Clark is more real than Superman, they also decided that Batman was more real than Bruce Wayne, which is probably a good thing, because I don't trust Bruce Wayne, flaky playboy extraordinaire, to do a very convincing job at pretending to be Batman. Meanwhile, Batman, crafty genius that he is, can do a very good job at faking playboy billionaire. (Perhaps the only Batman and Bruce really have in common is the billionaire part. Bruce is very good at making sure Wayne Enterprises keeps making money in order to continue funding Batman's very expensive hobbies.) In this case, of course, Bruce is the mask adapted to keep those closest to Batman safe from his veritable legion of certifiable foes. This delineation gets a little messy, though, when you think about the fact that those closest to Batman mostly all know he's Bruce Wayne, but the Bruce Wayne that they know can be described more as "Batman when he's actually being nice to people and not trying to scare them half to death."

At the moment I'm hard pressed to think of another superhero who does what Batman does to the extent he does it, but on a totally different note, Billy Batson is absolutely nothing like Captain Marvel, in that he's a kid and Captain Marvel is the man he becomes, making Billy's life pretty much my childhood dream. (Although I guess I didn't want to spontaneously turn into a man.) In this case, however, he's a completely different person physically when he's a superhero than when he's a kid. And in terms of superheroes whose super identity is the guise, I can't help but always want to bring up the Blue Raja from Mystery Men (who was not, as far as I can tell, part of the original Mystery Men from the Flaming Carrot comics), because he adopts a British accent while in costume, despite being American-And I'm sure for a fact that there are less ridiculous examples out there, but I love Hank Azaria.

Exhibit D: When You Become a Superhero First and Get the Identity Later
It's the Superclan that has the best track record of doing this, I feel. For someone whose home planet is supposed to have been destroyed, Superman sure ends up with a lot of wayward Kryptonians who turn up on Earth, being all flashy and super, and have to retroactively have civilian identities created for them. Power Girl (Kara Zor-L) created Karen Starr, Supergirl (Kara Zor-El) became Kara Kent, Nightwing (Lor-Zod, not Dick Grayson) acquired the name Chris Kent, and the latest guy to become an honorary Kent, Mon-El, took up the name Jonathan Kent in last month's Superman. At this rate, Clark Kent has a ridiculous number of surprise cousins, all orchestrated on paper in order for their pre-existing superheroics to continue.

More interestingly, though, is John Jones, secret identity of J'onn J'onzz, secret identity of the Martian Manhunter. Because he can shapeshift, he's able to pose as John Jones, a human detective, which doesn't seem like so much of a break from his usual line of work, but doing this is probably mostly a case of having somewhere to blend in and get out of the Manhunter costume. (And who can blame him? It's an awkward costume.)

I don't want to blanket-statement here, but I can help but feel that they're mostly right when they explain the necessity of keeping a secret identity as a safeguard against total insanity. After all, nobody can be super all the time. (Even if Batman would really like to try.) Sometimes you just need to be the girl who spends her lunch break balancing her checkbook. Or the guy who plays Scrabble in the park. Besides, there's always gotta be more to a person than their job. Just because you're a Green Lantern doesn't mean you can't also be an artist or architect, and just because you're Black Canary doesn't mean you can't do a stint as a florist. So while the invention of the "secret identity" is an interesting side effect of the superhero genre, it's pretty much unavoidable.

Besides, Zorro and the Scarlet Pimpernel did it far before these guys, and it worked for them.

Star Wars
It seems that galaxies far, far away are the best places to go for horse alternatives. Whether they be the gualamas or Obi-Wan's varactyl, Boga, in Episodes I-III, or the more old-school tauntauns on Hoth or the Tusken Raiders' Banthas, there doesn't seem to be much of a shortage of rideable animals.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Although the immortal Mrs. Whatsit first appears to be an elderly woman at the beginning of the novel, she eventually transforms into a centaur-like creature with rainbows for wings, able to be ridden by the children.

Dune (series) by Frank Herbert
The desert-dwelling sandworms are very large, not particularly attractive, many-toothed, omnivorous, and somehow entirely capable of being ridden, although it really isn't a prospect for the faint-hearted.

"Rider at the Gate" and "Cloud's Rider" by C. J. Cherryh
The colonists of a hostile planet tame its indigenous horses, called nighthorses. They're intelligent, telepathic, and have a yen for bacon. (You'd think I was making that last bit up. You'd be wrong.)

Nightmare (Casper the Friendly Ghost)
Not a nighthorse this time, but an delightful ghost horse named Nightmare, friend and companion of Casper.

Comet (DC Comics)
Comet is the horse addition that rounds out all the superfluous super animals that had their heyday in the 1960's. Sort of Supergirl's pet, Comet was once a centaur in Ancient Greece, but due to an unfortunate potion, was turned wholly horse. Sucks to be him. (Although it seems he also gets to spend time as a human too, so there's a plus of sorts.)

Sleipnir
Speaking of horses and ancient, nobody does a mythological horse better than Sleipnir, steed of Odin, king of the gods. This eight-legged creature was fathered by a stallion named Svaðilfari and birthed by Loki, the trickster god. And if you think about that too long, your brain hurts. (You can read a summary of the myth here.)

Dragonriders of Pern (series) by Anne and Todd McCaffrey
As the title suggests, the novels revolve around people who ride dragons on the planet of Pern. The riders have forged telepathic bonds with their dragons and use them to fight Thread, which is described as a deadly phenomenon that consumes all organic material in its path.

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende (and subsequent films)
Falkor the luckdragon, with his strangely serpentine, doglike appearance, flies the characters around, despite his lack of wings. (His unrelenting good luck is also a definite plus.)

My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett
To continue with the dragon theme, this young adult novel tells the fanciful tale of a boy (the narrator's father) journeying across an island to rescue a young dragon that had been captured by the island animals to ferry them back and forth across the river. (Find the full text of the novel here.)

Dinotopia by James Gurney (and TV series)
The sentient dinosaurs on the island work together with the people (who were shipwrecked there) to form a sort of utopian society, where all the inhabitants work together and the dinosaurs provide transportation for the people.

Let's go through the non-teen girl books first, shall we? Marvel are trying to empty your wallet by releasing two new X-Men series (X-Men: Noir, which recreates the characters in a 1920s setting, and X-Infernus, a sequel to "Inferno," the 1980s storyline; there's also a hardcover collection of the second half of Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men making it to stores as well), as well as the first issue of Ender's Shadow: Battle School, ground-level retro series Marvels: Eye Of The Camera and a hardcover collection of the first half-year of Matt Fraction's great Invincible Iron Man. Almost as fun is Project Superpowers, a hardcover collection of Dynamite Entertainment's wonderful, freaky and none-more-odd superhero revival series, in which big business makes zombies out of soldiers and only superhero buddhists from the '40s can save us. Or something.

Non-superhero, but more movie-friendly, books can be found in Hellboy: The Wild Hunt - a new series for Mike Mignola's demonic demon hunter - and The Spirit, a collection of Will Eisner's original stories that inspired (but not enough) Frank Miller's upcoming movie.

But even those books pale before DC's big launch for the week, Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures In The 8th Grade; a new series that aims to bring the Maid of Steel back to school and back to being something that non-emotionally stunted adult males can enjoy again. As much as I'm all for the reclamation of Supergirl by her original audience, mind you, it's not the best book you'll see this week. That honor falls to The War at Ellsmere, the new book by Faith Erin Hicks, which goes a little something like this:

Jun is the newest scholarship student at the prestigious Ellsmere girls' boarding school - but to a lot of the privileged rich girls, "scholarship student" is just a code for "charity case." Fortunately, Jun has an ally in the quirky Cassie, who swears the stories about the fierce creature that lives in the forest outside of the school are true. Between queen bees and mythical beasts, Jun has quite the school year ahead of her.

You can find a preview here, but as someone who loved Hicks' previous book, Zombies Calling, I can happily recommend this one.

Even if you're not the type of person who's willing to read about schoolgirls fighting crime and monsters, there's plenty more where that came from reaching stores tomorrow; check here, if you don't believe me. And if you are that type of person, you should probably head to your local comic store to take care of that particular jones. Just don't ask for "the book about the young girls in uniforms."

The issue continues the New Krypton storyline that brings 1,000,000 Kryptonians to Earth... some of whom don't have the best intentions. Here we've got highlights of what Earth is doing about this secret invasion, and the bad luck that poor Supergirl is having with her returned parents.

Supergirl #35 [DC Comics]

The final part of "Brainiac," the latest storyline from writer Geoff Johns and artist Gary Frank, manages to offer a new beginning of Kal-El at the same time as the end of the world for Clark Kent: As a result of defeating the newly-revamped Brainiac (now an alien who's spent years stealing cities from other planets), the fully-populated Kryptonian city of Kandor ends up in the Arctic - leaving the planet Earth with thousands of brand new Supermen and Women, all with powers and abilities the equal of Superman's — at the same time as Pa Kent dies of a heart attack in Smallville.

This isn't the first time for either thing to happen, of course (in fact, both Pa's death and new Kryptonians on Earth have been seen fairly recently in Grant Morrison's alternate universe All Star Superman), but poor Pa Kent has managed to stay alive in mainstream comics since the 1986 revamp of the Superman franchise. (Sure, he's since died in Smallville, but come on; it's Smallville. Like that counts.) And with the exception of Supergirl and the Phantom Zone criminals, the rest of the Kryptonians have managed to stay away for that length of time as well.

But while these new plot developments may not be wholly original, the timing of both leads poor Clark into something DC is calling New Krypton, a storyline running through the Superman and Supergirl series for the next few months, showing that without the folky wisdom of men and women like the Kents, great power doesn't lead to great responsibility... and that that may be a problem. Just guessing.

Action Comics #870 makes it to stores today; Superman: New Krypton Special is released on October 22nd.

[Action Comics #870]

Introducing the panel, Action Comics writer Geoff Johns said,

We've all kind of started to work together on Superman... we're all working in tandem to get the Superman universe lined up like we did on Green Lantern, get all the characters on the same page so we can go and tell crazy stories... We had a huge summit that we worked on all three books all the way through December 2010.

The first crazy story to spin out of that summit is October's New Krypton, which Johns teased with this high concept pitch:

Kandor is grown on the planet Earth, and all the Kryptonians decide 'Hey, cool, this must be new New Krypton' and Superman says 'No, it's not,' and chaos ensues.

More important than stories, according to the writers, is the characterization. Johns again:

We don't really want to change anything about Superman like saying, he's gonna have a kid. It's not about changing stuff as much as it's about exploring character... We want to get to them on an emotional level... [For example, the story 'Last Son'] was really about, Superman can never have a kid. He and Lois may love each other, but they can never have a kid. The House of El will end. How do they react to that?

Superman writer James Robinson admitted that part of that effort will include making sure that characters like Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen will return to the versions everyone knows, instead of superpowered giant turtles fighting evil gods: "The [supporting] characters have lost their way a bit," he said, before saying that Jimmy Olsen should be the third most important character in a Superman comic, after Superman and Lois. Johns agreed, and added that there are also plans afoot to use Lois more often: "If Superman married her, she's gotta be the coolest woman in the world."

The most important revelation from the panel may have come from new Supergirl writer Sterling Gates. When asked whether he will bring a more consistent characterisation to the Maid of Steel after an erratic few years where she's been portrayed as confused, evil, stupid, slutty and almost continually unheroic, he said that he saw her as one of the strongest characters DC Comics has, and feels that she's been mishandled recently. "Can we officially say that she's not a slut?" Johns asked, to the applause of the audience. So, now you know: Supergirl isn't a slut.

That's Mary Marvel's job.

Now that you're already skipping the Christmas adverts on TiVo, it probably comes as no surprise that comic publishers are gearing up for the holiday sales. Berkeley's Image Comics are the most bold this week, releasing the first issue of their mature-readers title Archibald Saves Christmas, which married those two traditional holiday themes: Released inmates from mental asylums and serial killers. Suicidal Santas, of course, come free.

Image is also going after the bookstore dollar with the release of the anthology Popgun Volume 1, which brings together some of comics' newest, hippest and ubiquitous creators between two covers for a "mixtape" that ignores genre boundaries and, in some cases, just plain good taste. It's probably your best bet for value for money this week, unless you happen to have the $75 spare that would allow you to pick up Marvel Comics' Captain America by Ed Brubaker Omnibus, collecting the first two years' of crime writer Brubaker's run on the Star Spangled Soldier, featuring Nazis, "cosmic cubes", cyborgs and that whole "death of Captain America" thing people were talking about earlier this year. For those with tighter budgets and more delicate dispositions, there's always DC Comics' 1950s reprint book, Showcase Presents: Supergirl Vol. 1, taking you back to when girls knew their places, and those places were hiding in orphanages in brunette wigs because your older cousin doesn't want the world to know you exist.

Oh, you only wish I was joking.

Still bearing the upcoming holidays in mind, Marvel also answers the time-honored question "What do I get my nerdy friend who cares a little too much about the fictional worlds he spends too much time reading about?" with the first issue (of two) of Marvel Atlas, letting you know just where Vibranium can be mined in Africa, and how far you'll have to go to import it into Doctor Doom's kingdom of Latveria. Alternatively, Virgin Comics have something for the overly-sensitive art movie lover in your life: Dock Walloper, a series created for the publisher by The Brothers McMullen director and Saving Private Ryan actor Ed Burns. If you prefer your movies with a little more bullet time, however, you might want to check out the much delayed sixth issue of Doc Frankenstein, written by The Matrix's Wachowski Brothers, and drawn by Matrix storyboard artist Steve Skroce.

Pick of the regular books, meanwhile, is DC's Green Lantern Corps #18, which manages to drop the ho ho ho and replaces it with the kind of high concept Hollywood dreams about: Indestructible Space Cop with Magic Wishing Ring versus Evil Superman. This gem of carnage fiction, along with everything else mentioned above will be available Thursday at your local comic book store, which can be found here.

And if you can't find what you're looking for, remember: You better not cry, you better not pout.

Popgun image courtesy Image Comics, Green Lantern Corps image courtesy of DC Comics