Greg Cox is one of the most prolific, and successful, authors of media tie-in novels, and he's won a loyal following for his many Star Trek books, including a trilogy filling in the backstory of much-loved villain Khan Noonien Singh. He's also written tie-in novels based on Alias, The 4400, Roswell, Underworld, Fantastic Four and Iron Man. He's also novelized the movies Ghost Rider, Daredevil and several others, plus DC Comics' big crossovers.

We talked to him about his new Terminator Salvation tie-in novel Cold War, out now from Titan Books, plus some of his other recent projects.

Cold War uses the same timeline as McG's recent movie, but only includes a couple of characters from the film: The main character is Losenko, the Russian general who appears briefly in the film, mentioning that Skynet is looking for Kyle Reese, and we learn all about Lysenko's backstory. Says Cox, "When I watched the movie, I was probably the only person who was mentally hanging on every scene with general Losenko," watching for every detail about the character to include in the book. Also in the book is General Ashdown (Michael Ironsides), the resistance leader who lives on a submarine. John Connor only pops in the book as a sort of mythological figure, giving inspirational speeches over the radio.

The new book takes place in Alaska and Russia, in two different time frames: 2003, right after Judgment Day, and then 2018. In 2003, the survivors are coping with the aftermath of the nuclear war, and Skynet is attacking them with really primitive Terminators, and the technology is close to what really existed in 2003. And then in 2018, Skynet has all the same tech it has in the movie — plus snowmobile Terminators, to navigate those frozen northern areas. It sounds like Cox had a lot of fun with the frosty settings:

My big gimmick was snowmobile Terminators. There's also a giant Terminator train. The trick is to try to find stuff in the [same] universe, that's slightly different. What haven't we seen yet? We haven't seen a Terminator train. The main reason for setting it in Alaska [was to include things like] dogsled chases, grizzly bears, avalanches, volcanos... We've seen so many chases on California highways, with fire trucks and emergency vehicles. I was looking for a whole different environment, not just recapitulating what people had done before.

Cox is somewhat surprised that the Terminator/grizzly bear fight has been the main thing people have talked about in his novel. "You can't have a Terminator in Alaska and not have him fight a grizzly bear. Okay, it's gratuitous, but how can I resist having a grizzly bear fight a Terminator?" And now that people have been so excited by it, "from now on, I put a grizzly bear in all my books." Spoiler alert: The bear doesn't stand a chance against a Terminator, says Cox.

There's also a Western-style train heist and loads of detail on a Russian submarine, plus lots of gritty war-movie-style action. Cox watched tons of World War II movies on TCM, read every Tom Clancy novel for the submarine details, and did loads of research on the world right after a nuclear war.

Cox says he watched Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles "religiously," but Titan Books and Halcyon were adamant that his book couldn't contain any references to T:SCC continuity. So don't expect Cameron to show up, but if anyone ever green-lights SCC novels, Cox will be first in line. The Terminator people were very keen to make sure Cox's book fit in with their vision of the universe, including making sure Skynet wasn't developing high technology too early after Judgment Day — and that meant loads of conference calls, notes and intensive feedback at every stage of the process.

Wrapping up The 4400

The amount of feedback you get from the licensors on a licensed property depends heavily on whether it's an ongoing concern, says Cox. With The 4400, for example, Cox wrote one tie-in novel while the series was on the air, and went through four different drafts in response to feedback. But when Cox wrote the first of two novels wrapping up the series after it ended, Welcome To Promise City, he got a more-or-less free hand. (The other novel, available now, is written by David Mack.) Cox, Mack and their editor cooked up an ending to the series together.

Except for tons of feedback from the fans. Cox says as soon as it was announced that he was writing a 4400 novel explaining what happened after the show's cancellation, he was bombarded with emails from fans all over the world demanding to know what he was going to do with their favorite subplots and characters. "I can't claim we wrapped up every loose end, but we tried to wrap up the important one," says Cox. He and Mack debated with their editor whether to tie up the end of the series with a neat bow, or leave a few things slightly open-ended in case they ended up doing more novels. They settled on the second approach, so if the books sell amazingly well, you might see further continuations of the story.

Novelizing Final Crisis

Cox novelized Infinite Crisis, 52 and Countdown for DC Comics, and now he's novelized Final Crisis, Grant Morrison's narrative-shredding uber-crossover starring the evil Darkseid. How on earth do you take Morrison's loopy storytelling and convert it into a single novel?

There was a lot of condensing involved, Cox admits:

There's not a lot of connective tissue in that series. [There are] a lot of scenes that jump from place to place. I've got to admit, the book is probably a bit more linear than the comic book, especially issue seven, which was jumping all over time. I actually just tried to tell it a bit more in chronological order, and maybe simplify it a bit.

The biggest problem with novelizing one of these sprawling DC crossovers is figuring out what subplots and tie-ins to leave out. The first week Cox was working on the Infinite Crisis novelization, he was trying to include all of the spin-off issues, including things like Rann-Thanagar War One-Shot, and every other miniseries and crossover issue, "and I realized this book is going to take me ten years, and it's going to be the size of The Wheel Of Time." So he began paring things down. Similarly, the Final Crisis book ignores a lot of tie-ins, sadly including the 3-D Superman tie-in series. "I apologize if your favorite scene is not in this book, but there's no way I can get in the 3-D tie in superman issue and the Batman issues and the special tie-in issue of Secret Six."

With novelizations of comics crossovers, "it's all about streamlining." It's the opposite of novelizing movie scripts, which is all about fleshing out the story and characters and adding new stuff to turn a 90-page script into a 300-to-400-page novel. "The script for Ghost Rider was not a terribly long script," notes Cox. He recalls coming across the novelization for Snakes On A Plane and marveling that Christa Faust had managed to get 400 pages out of that film. He felt like sending her fan mail.

Should Khan Come Back?

As the author of three Khan books, Cox is conflicted about whether Khan should appear in the next Star Trek movie. On the one hand, recasting Khan seems almost impossible, given how much Ricardo Montalban put his stamp on the character. On the other, Cox might have said the same thing about recasting Kirk, Spock and McCoy — and J.J. Abrams and crew pulled that off. The real question is, "do you do Botany Bay Khan, or crazy burned-out Wrath Of Khan Khan? There's the young virile but not quite crazy Khan, and then there's the obsessed spent-15-years-in-Hell Khan. And then there's the whole messy [subject of the] Eugenics Wars — when exactly did they take place? Did they take place during the Bill Clinton years?"

Cox is writing one of four new novels that take place in the movie's continuity, picking up where the movie left off. He's written a draft of his novel, but hasn't gotten feedback from Paramount yet, so everything is subject to change. But at least for now, his novel takes place six months after the end of the movie, and follows Captain Kirk and his crew on a stand-alone adventure. And he hints that, if Paramount approves, the fact that the Vulcans are refugees scattered across the universe will play a part in his novel's plot.

So last night was the long-awaited debut of V, the show about beautiful aliens who show up and claim to come in peace and offer us lots of goodies... but turn out to be rapacious lizards in disguise. The pilot moves along at a brisk pace, introducing the aliens in the first 10 minutes and setting up various characters as anti-alien and pro-alien. The younger priest is suspicious, but the older priest is an alien-sympathizer. Elizabeth Mitchell's FBI agent is suspicious too, but her teenage son guzzles the Kool-Aid. The nice-suited African American guy is conflicted and doesn't want to be "that guy" any more.

By the end of the first episode, it's already made crystal clear that these aliens are up to no good. They've had sleeper agents on Earth for years, including Alan Tudyk's FBI agent. And other aliens living secretly among us are part of an anti-alien resistance, which may look like terrorists to the uninitiated.

So now that you've had a chance to see the pilot for yourself, you can judge whether it's actually a broadside aimed at our president. The Chicago Tribune's Glenn Garvin seems absolutely certain it is:

Imagine this. At a time of political turmoil, a charismatic, telegenic new leader arrives virtually out of nowhere. He offers a message of hope and reconciliation based on compromise and promises to marshal technology for a better future that will include universal health care.

The news media swoons in admiration — one simpering anchorman even shouts at a reporter who asks a tough question: "Why don't you show some respect?!" The public is likewise smitten, except for a few nut cases who circulate batty rumors on the Internet about the leader's origins and intentions. The leader, undismayed, offers assurances that are soothing, if also just a tiny bit condescending: "Embracing change is never easy."

So, does that sound like anyone you know? Oh, wait — did I mention the leader is secretly a totalitarian space lizard who's come here to eat us?

Welcome to ABC's "V," the most fascinating and bound to be the most controversial new show of the fall television season. Nominally a rousing sci-fi space opera about alien invaders bent on the conquest (and digestion) of all humanity, it's also a barbed commentary on Obamamania that will infuriate the president's supporters and delight his detractors.

The meme spread throughout the right-wing and left-wing blogospheres yesterday, with Ana-Marie Cox weighing in over at Huffington Post.

So now that you've had a chance to see the pilot for yourself, is it really all about how we would have been better off with McCain in the White House? Umm... Probably not. But it was definitely not a subtle episode. The aliens had "too good to be true" plastered on their faces from the beginning, and because the episode moves so fast, we're left wondering why anybody would have bought this dog-and-pony show in the first place.

And there are some little winks at the right-wing tea-partiers that may just be intentional, like when Anna (Morena Baccarin) talks about "change," and the sleazy journo guy asks her about universal health care. Mostly, though, the show seems designed so that you can project whatever ideology you want onto it — not unlike Anna's luminous screen, floating over the world's major cities.

The show isn't subtle, but that's part of the point — there are no hidden messages here at all. The messages are all right on the surface, and they're pretty basic science-fiction standbys, like "aliens who seem too good to be true usually are." Even the show's little jabs at the media and our dumb youth culture feel like they're just slapping a 21st century paint job on the show's 1980s fable. Media talking heads are blow-dried and dumb, young twerps enjoy tagging and Youtube — it's not exactly incisive social criticism.

I really doubt Obama is worried here.

The fast pace, though, is a good thing — that's one of the things that endeared me to this pilot in the first place. Anyone who remembers the original show is going to know these aliens are hucksters, so the faster that's revealed to the audience, the better. And compared to the pilot of FlashForward, which fixated on the crashy destruction and chaos attendant on the future vision/blackout in its pilot for several minutes, V got the disruption of the aliens' visit over fairly quickly, with one desultory plane crash.

Watching the pilot for a second time, the main problem that jumps out at me is that those two teenage kids are going to make me want to claw my face off. And it seems like Smallville's Laura Vandervoort is going to be somewhat painful to watch as well, with the woodenness. But getting to see Elizabeth Mitchell kick more ass and be less angsty than she was on Lost pretty much makes up for those drawbacks. And priest guy, who hails from The 4440, is still just as fun to watch as ever. Plus Baccarin can only get slyer and more engaging as the evil Anna, once her evil plans unfold.

I'm pretty sure this version of the pilot was significantly different from the version we saw at Comic Con. We knew the final sequence was going to be different — that laser shooting robot drone (in the clip above) was not there before, and the last few minutes were generally zippier. But also, my favorite scene is missing from the televised version. In the original version, when we meet Chad Decker, he's just had sex with the vice president's cougar-ish assistant, who promises to get him an interview with the Veep in return for the booty call. It lets us know right away that Decker is a man-whore, and is sort of hilariously trashy besides. In the televised version, that's replaced with a bland scene of him wanting to interview the Veep, but being told that he's just the talking head who reads the news. I have a feeling there were other weird, funny touches removed before the show aired, but I can't remember the others off the top of my head. This definitely felt a bit blander than the original pilot, although how much of that was editing and how much was just seeing it a second time, I'm not sure.

But despite some quibbles, this was a pretty fun outing, and a nice start to the series. It got us to the "OMG the aliens are evil lizards" part quickly and zippily, and set us up for three more episodes of alien intrigue and human gullibility, with an anti-alien resistance simmering under the surface. Now if those two teenagers can just get blown up in a tragic shuttlecraft accident, preferably next week...

The reason why I say that so emphatically is, there's a tendency to avoid watching a television show if you think it's already pre-cancelled. Why give your heart to a piece of ephemeral pop culture that won't even last the five-to-seven years that a successful show lasts? Why become fixated on a story you know won't end? Part of the answer is that we are science-fiction fans, and having our hearts broken is part of the deal. But you also have to keep the faith alive that it won't happen this time.

So in case you've missed our grindingly depressing coverage (mirroring everyone else's) of V's misfortunes, it's had a troubled ramp-up. First it was put on a production hiatus for a few weeks, then it was announced that showrunner Jeff Bell (who was showrunner on Angel's final season) was being demoted — he's still around as a writer, but he's no longer in charge. Then before the first hiatus was even over, a second hiatus was announced, and the show was on hold for at least a couple of months. And then the network decided to air only four episodes, this month, and then put the show on hold until after the Olympics, in March.

And today, there's the news that Scott Peters, the show's creator who replaced Bell as showrunner, was himself ousted. His replacement, luckily, will be Scott Rosenbaum, who's been a producer on Chuck and The Shield. Judging from the USA Today article, it sounds like the root of all these problems, including the production turnovers and delays, is the network's discontent with the show's creative direction. Here's USA Today's succinct explanation:

[T]he series remake has run into roadblocks. V's pilot episode was well-received by advertisers and critics, but ABC's late-summer decision to start the show two months earlier than planned – in part to dodge American Idol and the broadcast of the Winter Olympics, also in Vancouver – led to script problems, which forced reshoots and a five-week production break.

The first of three planned story arcs was condensed from six to four fall episodes. And the show will test viewers' loyalty with a three-month hiatus; remaining episodes won't surface until March. A promotional campaign that called for planes to skywrite red V's over national landmarks was scuttled after publicity over potential environmental effects.

And Thursday, in a response to the show's production problems, Peters (USA Network's The 4400) was replaced at the helm of the show by Scott Rosenbaum (Chuck, The Shield), though he is expected to stay aboard as an executive producer.

"We had a great pilot, then a couple of great episodes, but we had a disconnect on where we were going from there," says ABC Entertainment Group chief Stephen McPherson. Though no stranger to tinkering (he made extensive changes to the original Grey's Anatomy pilot), "I hadn't had the experience of that before." But McPherson accepts "a little blame for rushing them."

Mitchell, who plays hero FBI agent Erica Evans, says the resulting changes merely speed the pace of storytelling to pack a bigger wallop, including big cliffhangers in the Nov. 24 episode. Filming on that episode is set to wrap today, giving actors another unexpected 10-week break as the show is retooled. (Mitchell will trek to Hawaii to shoot new Lost episodes.)

So, yes. A troubled show, even before its first episode airs — and this does remind me a bit of similar behind-the-scenes stories about Bionic Woman, Dollhouse, Life On Mars, and countless other shows that had difficult gestations leading to troubled runs. But these things aren't fore-ordained, and a show can beat the odds.

Here are some reasons why I'm still cautiously optimistic about V in spite of all of the negative buzz:

1) The pilot really is great. From what I hear, the pilot that airs tonight is much the same one we all watched at Comic Con, and it's truly impressive. I went into the pilot expecting, at best, pleasant mediocrity or a watered-down tribute to the geek TV of our childhoods. And instead, I was surprised by what a cracking great piece of television it is. The story of the aliens who arrive promising great wonders, but quickly turn out to be a lot worse than we realize, is retold at a zippy pace and revamped for our wired, media-savvy culture. And it's provocative to have a show that says that despite all of our proud cynicism and air quotes, we're still suckers for the first super-advanced civilization that shows up offering us small-pox-infested blankets.

2) The cast is terrific. This matters a lot. You know who they never replaced during Bionic Woman's behind-the-scenes dickering? Michelle Ryan. You could have swapped in a dozen different producers, and it wouldn't have made Ryan watchable. In V, Elizabeth Mitchell is proving that her sparks of versatility on Lost weren't just illusions — she's really great as the show's heroine. (And how great is it that we actually have a female lead on a network show, who's not Michelle Ryan?) Given time, Mitchell could be as great as Lena Headey as Sarah Connor. Also, Whedonverse alums Alan Tudyk and Morena Baccarin are also just as great as you'd hope — and Baccarin is so natural as a smarmy alien leader, you'll almost forget Inara.

3) Maybe all the tinkering really will make it a better show in the end. Rosenbaum coming on as show-runner is actually great news — and if he can bring a bit of The Shield to V, then we'll be doing great. Also, I'm not entirely sad to hear they're tightening the pace. When I hear that six episodes were compressed to four, or that a show is going to cut to the chase faster, I often secretly rejoice — the biggest pitfall with a show like V is that the mysteries will be sustained for too long, that characters won't figure stuff out until long after the audience has, and that we won't get to see people fighting aliens until season three. As the SF Chronicle's Tim Goodman points out, this sort of molasses-slow storytelling has already overtaken fellow ABC show FlashForward (which might get renamed "inch forward" soon) — so it would be a shame if it happened to V as well.

4) We sort of owe it to ourselves to support any show about alien invaders. It's not as if we have a bevy of alien-invasion shows to choose from, or really a bevy of shows about aliens period. American television seems to have abdicated the territory it once owned, of first contact, alien attackers, galactic imperialists, and so on. I am prepared to apologize for mocking the boring alien makeup on shows like Star Trek: Voyager, if it means that we'll get aliens on TV once again. But for now, if there's even a hope of getting a show about meeting people unlike ourselves on television again, we need to grasp it with both hands.

5) I'm hoping that the creative stew of influences will still yield something really subversive and interesting. Peters, who created The 4400, is still on board as a producer according to USA Today, and Angel's Bell still seems to be in the mix as well. And the pilot definitely contains a huge dose of the paranoia and concerns about selling out that those earlier works were all about. (There's the journalist who's willing to ask only softball questions of the alien leader, as well as the religious figures who hitch their wagon to the aliens' star.) So maybe if those things remain part of V's DNA, and they aren't part of what gets sacrificed in the network's headlong dash to create soft and mushy enough for the general public to chew and swallow, then we'll still get a show that challenges us and reminds us that science fiction, even on television, can be a thing of amazement.

So yes, it's worth risking another disappointment. V is on ABC tonight at 8.

They Come Back, But Not Quite Alive

Torchwood: When Jack Harkness is understandably upset when Owen Harper is shot and killed. But at least he's got the Resurrection Gauntlet to bring him back to life, right? Well, sort of. Owen still walks and talks, but he's not precisely alive. His heart doesn't beat, his flesh doesn't heal, and his reflexes are gone. And, if that wasn't bad enough, he can't even enjoy food or sex anymore, and Weevils follow him everywhere.

Caprica: Granted, the consequences of bringing Zoe Graystone back from the dead are pretty far-reaching. After all, it results in the creation of the Cylons and the eventual decimation of humanity. But when Joseph Adama encounters a computerized copy of his dead daughter, her concerns with being back from the dead are more immediate. Without a living body, she has no pulse and just generally feels wrong, to the extent that she can't stand being semi-alive this way.

"Playback" Arthur C. Clarke: Caprica's borrowed a page from Clarke here, who wrote a tale of aliens who try to bring a pilot back to life after his ship explodes. They manage to restore all of his memories, but have no idea what kind of body he had, and he's a bit depressed to find that he's just a non-corporeal simulation.

"The River Styx Runs Upstream" by Dan Simmons: When a young boy's mother dies, his father has her body resurrected. Although her body has returned, her mind simply isn't there, and she wanders through life as an automaton. The boy's distraught father and older brother eventually kill themselves in their grief, horror, and shame, but the boy doesn't think resurrection's so terrible. He himself goes to work for the Resurrectionists, spending his free time with his resurrected family.

You Bring Them Back Wrong

Doctor Who "The Empty Child:" Well-meaning nanobots attempt to reconstruct a child killed during the London Blitz. But not knowing what a human child looks like, they bring him back as a mindless abomination, with a gas mask for a face and ever searching for his mother. Even worse, the bots decide that this is what all humans must look like, and proceed to transmute healthy children as well.

"The Monkey's Paw" by WW Jacobs: The mystical monkey's paw grants wishes, but never in the way you hoped. After the first wish Mr. White makes results in the death of his son Herbert, his second wish is for Herbert to return. Mr. White never sees his son, but he knows after a horrible accident and a week on the slab, Herbert probably isn't the same. His third wish takes Herbert away.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer "Forever:" Following the same vein as "The Monkey's Paw," Dawn tries to resurrect her dead mother via magic. She also never sees her mother, realizing that what comes back won't quite be her, and breaks the spell before her mother reaches their front door.

They'll Try to Kill You Afterward

30 Days of Night: Dark Days: After Eben Olemaun becomes a vampire to save the remaining citizens of Barrow, he turns to ash when the polar sun finally rises. This sets Stella Olemaun on a quest to bring her husband back to life. But when she succeeds, Eben is still a vampire — and a hungry one at that.

"Herbert West — Reanimator" by HP Lovecraft: Medical student Herbert West is fascinated by life and death, and develops a serum he believes will restart the machinery of the human body. The serum works, but turns the corpses into cannibalistic zombies. West is unrepentant , focused on new ways to find dead subjects for his experiments. Of course, eventually his zombie experiments turn on him.

Practical Magic: After Sally Owens' boyfriend Jimmy turns out to be abusive, she drugs him and accidentally kills him. Fearing prison, Sally and her sister Gillian cast a spell to revive him, but Jimmy's immediate reaction isn't exactly gratitude. He tries to kill Gillian, forcing Sally to murder him once again.

Pet Sematary: Any dead creature buried in the ancient Micmac burial ground comes back to life, just not quite the way you put it in. After losing his young son Gage, Louis buries his son in the graveyard. Sure enough, Gage comes back — and promptly murders his mother.

Lexx: You would think that, given the prophecy that the last of the Brunnen-G would kill His Divine Shadow, the last thing His Divine Shadow would do is resurrect a Brunnen-G corpse. But he did exactly that to Kai, making him one of the living dead as a Divine Assassin. It takes over 2000 years, but eventually Kai does get around to killing him.

Supernatural "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things:" College students and necromancy are always a recipe for trouble. When a broken-hearted boy tries to bring his dead crush back, she's of course got to go zombie and start chomping down on her loved ones.

God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert: For thousands of years, Leto Atreides has ruled over humanity, and always has a ghola — a copy — of his father's faithful friend Duncan Idaho to serve him. But the Duncan ghola's almost inevitably rebel against Leto and try to kill him, forcing Leto to kill all but 19 gholas. Still, Leto keeps bringing in a fresh Duncan ghola after each attempt on his life.

They Bring Death With Them

Pushing Daisies: When pie maker Ned touches dead bodies, they become reanimated, without regard for mutilation or decay. But if he fails to deanimate them after more than a minute, a random person in close proximity dies, taking their place. And for Ned, bringing the dead back to life is further complicated by not being able to touch them, lest they fall dead once again.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer "After Life:" Actually, bringing a body-stealing demon into the world of the living was probably the least of the disastrous consequences of resurrecting the Slayer. Still, when a demon gets loose in Sunnydale, the Scoobies have to kill it before it kills Buffy.

Carnivale: Ben Hawkins has the power to bring people back from the dead, but it comes with a price: one person of Hawkins' choosing must die in exchange for the life. And, try though he might, he can't choose himself.

Torchwood "Dead Man Walking:" Another fun consequence of Owen's walking death is that Death himself comes along for the ride. He's looking for 13 souls to consume so he can remain in the world of the living and slake his thirst for destruction.

It Will Come at Great Personal Cost

The Dresden Files: The sorcerer Hrothbert of Bainbridge committed a crime against his order by bringing his beloved Winifred back from the dead, prompting the High Council to hand down a severe and lasting punishment: they imprison his spirit inside his skull for all eternity. Hrothbert, now "Bob," has been around over a thousand years, but he can't interact with the physical world.

Torchwood "They Keep Killing Suzie:" The other Resurrection Gauntlet actually does bring the dead back to full-fledged life. But naturally there's still a catch: the resurrected person draws life energy from the living wearer, and permanent resurrection means the death of the living wearer.

Full Metal Alchemist: After their mother dies, Edward and Alphonse try to revive her through alchemy. Not only do they fail to bring her back from the dead, they lose physical pieces of themselves in the process, with Edward losing his left leg and Alphonse losing his entire body.

Supernatural: The Winchesters thrive on death and resurrection. When Sam is shot and killed, Dean trades his soul for Sam's life, with the bartering demon collecting in just a year. Sure enough, after a year, Dean dies and head off to Hell.

It Will Attract Unwanted Attention

The Outer Limits "Josh:" When reclusive Josh Butler resurrects a young girl through a strange electromagnetic pulse, it attracts the attention of a tabloid TV reporter looking for a scoop. Unfortunately, it also attracts the attention of the US Air Force, who promptly seize Josh and start performing medical tests.

The 4400: Shawn Farrell manages to bring a bird back from the dead, just one example of his amazing healing abilities. But not everyone is thrilled about his strange new powers, and they bring him to the attention of Jordan Collier, which is a bit of a double-edged sword.

It's Only Temporary

AI: Artificial Intelligence: The evolved mechas who find David frozen beneath the water are able to give the robotic boy his greatest wish: time with his long-dead adoptive mother Monica. The resurrection only lasts a day and can never be repeated. David's okay with the arrangement, since that one day is perfect, but it's a clear audience tearjerker.

They Were Actually Okay With Being Dead

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Willow assumed that Buffy's death by interdimensional portal had sent the Slayer to a hell dimension, and conjured up some ill-advised magic to bring her back. Unfortunately, Willow never considered that Buffy might actually be in Heaven, leaving her in a major season-long depression as she adjusts to inferior life back on Earth.

Supernatural: Okay, so Dean didn't exactly enjoy his stay in Hell, but he's dealing with some very Buffy-like issues on his return to Earth. He clearly remembers his agonizing time in Hell and got a real taste for torture. And God might have pulled him out of Hell, but his plans for Dean on Earth involve more havoc and torture.

Green Lantern: Maura Rayner is infected with a sentient virus sent by Sinestro and her son Kyle failed to get back in time to save her. He uses his powers to revive her, but she won't have any of it. She senses that, once dead, there's something wrong with being alive and begs him to let her be dead once again.

You Never Really Liked Them in the First Place

The Venture Bros.: Dean and Hank Venture are a tad on the death-prone side, so their father always keeps a few clone slugs around to imprint with their memories. But once they're alive again, he generally treats them as nuisances — or ignores them entirely. But he does find it handy to have a spare organ donor (or two) around.

Red Dwarf: Nearly the entire complement of the Red Dwarf is killed off in the first episode, only to be resurrected in the eighth season thanks to a little nanobot magic. Lister is no longer the only human in the universe, but he and his cohorts immediately run afoul of the newly reconstructed crew.

It Makes for Unnecessary Sequels

And Another Thing... by Eoin Colfer: We said goodbye to several major characters from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series (as well as the entire planet Earth) at the end of Mostly Harmless. Presumably Eoin Colfer's sequel will see Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, and Trillian ride again, and Arthur's none too pleased about it.

At last I have my answer. I cornered 4400 co-creator Scott Peters at the Warner Bros. party at Comic-Con and asked him what he thought of my theory. He laughed and said with exaggerated understatement, "Oh yeah, it's about that just a little bit. The Scientologists never came after us, though."

Bell, is known for his work on X-Files, Alias and the best part of Angel (right around the time the lonely vampire took charge of Wolfram and Hart). In fact, Bell was showrunner for the final season of Angel.

"Like many people, I have fond memories of whatching the original miniseries," Bell said. "And to see how they did it now, it's epic. (Exec producer/scribe) Scott Peters did a fantastic job relaunching it. It seems like there are so many ways that you could go with this story."

While Bell's deal is for two years, the alien invasion series is on a year-by-year contract. The first year will consist of 13 episodes, and the next could have more (or none). The drama will begin in January. Scott Peters, of The 4400 fame, and the brains behind the updated V, will remain an executive producer.

[Variety]

It's starting to feel like more and more science fiction shows take place in the Vancouververse, that nondescript urban landscape where aliens, cyborgs and monsters roam the Anytown, U.S.A.-looking streets, always careful not to stand in front of the telltale mountains. In any case, this is a bad sign, if you believe io9 commenter and weekly contributor Garrison Dean.

Meanwhile, SpoilerTV unearthed another casting call which includes some more characters who will be joining "Anderson Cooper wannabe" Chad, alien spokesperson Anna, counter-terrorism expert Erica and resistance leader Father Jack.

They include Valerie, a single mother who is dating Ryan (who turns out to be one of the aliens in disguise, but he's on our side. We think.) And Valerie's daughter Cassie. Then there's Lisa, one of the Visitors who serves as a guide aboard their mothership. Lisa appears 18 years old and is flirty, easily drawing Erica's son Tyler and his friend Bryce into the ranks of the Visitors' allies. Then there's Marcus, another Visitor and Anna's second in command.

[CinemaSpy and SpoilerTV]

The script pages were released for casting purposes, but they appear to be genuine pages from the pilot. In a nutshell, they introduce our cast of characters — the word "montage" is mentioned on one page, which makes me a tad nervous — and then strange earthquakes disrupt everything. The earthquakes turn out to be the effects of the Visitors' spacecraft, which finally arrives. The Visitors' leader/spokesperson, the human-looking Anna, appears on big screens all over the world, and she seems to be speaking the local language wherever she's broadcast. She explains that her people thought they were the only intelligent life forms in the universe until now, and they're overjoyed to find out they're not alone. They observed Earth for a while, to make sure humans were peaceful, but now they're happy to make contact. They need some of our water (which for some reason they can't just take from Mars or Enceladus) and a common Earth mineral, and in return they'll give us some of their technology and leave us better than they found us.

Reactions to the aliens are mixed, with some humans embracing them wholeheartedly and others being suspicious. The aliens generate a sort of cult of followers, including teenagers who tag the "V" sign everywhere and shout "Visitors rule!". Other people become paranoid and start forming underground resistance networks. The pilot ends with the motherships landing all over the world, with a pulsing dance beat, as one human warns that the aliens now have the most powerful weapon in the world: people's devotion.

Reading through the script pages, I can easily believe that The 4400's Scott Peters is involved. It feels very similar to The 4400, in good ways as well as bad.

The script pages also give a pretty good sense of some of the characters' story arcs:

Chad, described as an "Anderson Cooper wannabe," interviews Alison, an aide to the Vice President and then sleeps with her afterwards. She tells him he did well, and he can expect to get an interview with the VP soon. Later, he goes aboard the alien mothership to interview the aliens' mouthpiece, Anna. With one minute before the interview goes live, Anna insists that Chad must only ask her questions that put the aliens in a positive light. Chad tries to protest that he'll be fair and balanced, but she insists he must be "more than fair." Chad caves, and later, Alison writes him an email asking whose morals he had to corrupt to get such a great gig. The interview's a huge success, and Anna decides Chad will be her mouthpiece whenever she has an announcement.

Father Jack, a Catholic priest, gives a sermon warning people not to trust the aliens, and the church tells him to cut it out. "We are all God's creatures," the Vatican says. "Rattlesnakes are God's creatures too," Jack remarks. "People need to hear that the visitors are part of God's plan," says another priest, Father Travis. And then a formerly wheelchair bound guy turns up, having been miraculously healed by the Visitors. But a visitor to Jack's confession booth tells him to keep up the anti-alien sermonizing, because people are going to need to wake up to the alien threat. All of a sudden, Jack's normally empty church is full of fearful people. Jack winds up helping to organize the anti-alien resistance, and visits a secret meeting where a doctor injects them with anesthetic at the base of their scalp, and then tests them to make sure they're really humans. Jack says he's a coward, but then later he gives a huge speech about how we need to stand up and fight.

Erica, an FBI agent in the counter-terrorism group, has a son named Tyler who's in the area where the aliens show up. Erica tries to use her FBI badge to get into the area the marines have cordoned off to find Tyler, but winds up having to sneak in. Tyler is a teenage dork, who is obsessed with being cool but knows he's not really cool — he buys a cool bike, but as soon as he gets on it, it's not cool any more. He goes to a cool party, but is the least cool person there. Seriously, Tyler constantly talks about his failed attempts at coolness. Tyler becomes a huge fan of the Visitors, and starts tagging people's cars and spreading pro-alien tagging instructions online. Erica starts investigating the anti-Visitor movements as possible terrorist cells, and then she attends an anti-Visitor meeting, along with Father Jack. When Erica and Jack leave the meeting, they get attacked by thugs. Erica attacks one of them, but it turns out to be her FBI partner Dale. She thinks it's just a big mistake, but he keeps trying to kill her. She injures him, and the wound reveals gray reptilian skin... her partner is a "fucking Visitor!" Most of the people from the meeting wind up dead.

Ryan is buying an engagement ring for his girlfriend Valerie when the earthquakes start. He's trying to decide whether to do the "going down on one knee" thing. But then later, Ryan attends the anti-Visitor meeting and helps the resitance to fight off the pro-Visitor thugs and undercover Visitors. Ryan himself turns out to be a Visitor, but he insists he's a traitor to his own kind and he wants to help fight them. Later, Valerie finds the ring and tells Ryan she loves him, but there's a lot of crying, maybe because Valerie found out Ryan is really a scaly alien.

Thanks to Lukas for the heads up!

Besides more commentary from Peters on the series, the 15-disc box set also has the show's original pilot episode with commentary, The 4400: The Ghost Season and deleted scenes. Plus there's a special about Promicin, the glowing goo that hooked up to your brain (so to speak) called "Promicin: The Moral Choice" and more audio commentary on the episode "The Great Leap Forward."

Now that Peters is destined to remake the other weird present-day TV series, V, I'm really interested at going back and looking at The 4400 again. I'm also dying to see what Peters will bring to the old alien lizard-face classic.

Even though Peters was hesitant to do another scifi project, he couldn't resist remaking V when Warner Brother's approached him, and who could blame him this show is too ridiculous not to redo.

As opposed to following the Nazi Germany metaphor in the original V, Peters explained that this V will show what happens when the masses have blind faith in their leaders:

In this case, the new V will center on Erica Evans, a Homeland Security agent with an aimless son who’s got problems. When the aliens arrive, her son gloms on to them — causing tension within the family. As in the original V, several storylines will unfold simultaneously.

Jace Hall, former head of the WB, "will help expand V into other platforms, including gaming." Just, please, no MMO.

Peters also promises tons of spaceships and other soon-to-be made toys. Throw in another alien birth, and you've got me hook, line and sinker.

[Variety]

The new show - currently titled The Return - will be have both Echevarria and Berlanti as executive producers, should it make it to air. Little is known about the project, other than Variety's short take on the premise:

Project revolves around the impact on the world — including the White House — when aliens land.

Are they friendly? Do they have a secret agenda, V-style? And why, exactly, is it a "return"? Hopefully at least some of these questions will be answered soon. All we know is that we're looking forward to some more 4400-style drama.

Greg Berlanti plots 'Return' for ABC [Variety]

Here's the synopsis:

Eleven-year-old Maia can see the future, and she’s never wrong. So when she has a vision of Mount Rainier starting to erupt, the National Threat Assessment Command takes her warning very seriously. But to track down the unknown returnee who may trigger the volcanic eruption, NTAC agents Tom Baldwin and Diana Skouris must uncover the astounding truth behind one of the greatest unsolved crimes of the twentieth century….

And they’ve got competition. Ruthless enemies are working against them and somehow managing to keep one step ahead of the desperate agents. With the future closing in on them, Tom and Diana must foil a lethal conspiracy — before Seattle and the entire Pacific Northwest go the way of ancient Pompeii.

The book's available now on Amazon.com and in bookstores. [Slice Of Scifi]

Okay first of all, now that you've agreed to be spoiled: this summer's movies featuring untrustworthy mentors include Iron Man and Wanted. In Iron Man, we hear a lot of vague stuff about how Obadiah (Jeff Bridges) gave all this guidance to Tony Stark after Tony's dad died, and then of course Obadiah turns out to be a backstabbing asswipe. And in Wanted, Morgan Freeman does a huge Obi-Wan impression (but doesn't teach James McAvoy how to shop for fresh fruit) and then of course we discover his whole happy magic-loom-of-murderous-destiny story is a monstrous lie.

So here are some other great lying mentors from classic scifi, and the lessons you can learn from their mendaciousness.

So yeah, Obi-Wan: not the most honest mentor out there either. Here's what he tells Luke in the original Star Wars:

A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights. He betrayed and murdered your father.

Takeaway lesson: We've all had mentors who pulled shit like this. Like trying to convince you that their rivals in middle management were evil SOBs who totally wasted the office snack budget on their own "sales fiesta."

Of course, Obi Wan's a paragon of honesty compared to Palpatine, who takes young Anakin under his wing in the Star Wars prequels and feeds him all sorts of nonsense, including "the Dark Side of the Force can save your wife from death."

Takeaway lesson: Mentors who give you advice about your marriage are always evil. Always.

Ra's Al Ghul teaches Bruce Wayne how to be a stealthy head-kicking shadow of justice in Batman Begins. Which is great, until it turns out his League Of Shadows is really an evil organization that wants to destroy Gotham City for some vague reason.

Takeaway lesson: You can learn some useful skills from your mentor... even if you end up hating what the mentor wants you to use them for.

As this TV Tropes entry on Evil Mentors points out, Sylar becomes a mentor to Maya, the girl with the runniest mascara in the world. He tells her a bunch of lies about who he is and where he comes from, and also tells a lie of omission about that whole "I killed your brother thing." But mostly, he tries to influence her into using her runny-mascara powers for ebil.

Takeaway lesson: When your mentor tries to get you to go on a goo-eyed killing spree, or generally compromise your deepest principles, it may be time to find another shoulder to cry on.

Jordan Collier in The 4400 takes super-healer Shawn Farrell under his slimy wing and becomes his mentor and surrogate father... until Shawn realizes that Jordan is secretly using death-ninjas to commit terrorism against all those annoying vanilla non-superpowered people.

Takeaway lesson: Pick your mentors carefully. And watch out for those shaggy wannabe Messiah type people.

Thomas Nau in Vernor Vinge's A Deepness In The Sky rapes and murders Qiwi's mother in front of her. But then he erases her memory using a version of his Focusing technique, and turns her into his trusted assistant. Every now and then, she starts to remember the truth and tries to escape, but he just mindwipes her again.

Takeaway lesson: Ummm... pay attention to that little voice in the back of your head, I guess?

Arvin Sloane in Alias is the perfect nurturing, caring boss for young Sydney... until it turns out that every word that comes out of his mouth is poisonous trash. Basically, he's not one of the good guys, and he doesn't really work for the CIA, and he's not trying to bring about world peace and harmony and happy vibes.

Takeaway lesson: If your father figure has your boyfriend murdered because you got careless in your pillow talk, that could be a clue to something.

Joseph Korso takes young Cale Tucker under his wing in Titan A.E., saving his life and teaching him how to pilot a spaceship and race Wake Angels for fun and good luck and all that good stuff. But then it turns out he's secretly working for the evil alien Drej.

Takeaway lesson: If your mentor has a special knack for sneaking you aboard the evil aliens' spaceships and piloting them, it could be because he has a certain... affinity for those bastards. Just a heads up.

Elijah Price teaches David Dunn how to be a superhero in M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable... but then it turns out Elijah, aka Mr. Glass, is secretly a supervillain who caused several disasters, including a train wreck, to find un unbreakable hero.







Takeaway lesson: If all the pieces fall into place for your mentor to "discover" your talents, then it may not just be a coincidence.

And then there's Alan Moore's graphic novel V For Vendetta, where V lies to his acolyate Evey about a whole bunch of things... most notably he puts her into a fake, head-shaving prison camp in order to stiffen her spine for the things that must be done.

Takeaway lesson: There's hazing and then there's crazy hazing. If your mentor believes in the "prison camp" model of employee orientation — or even just paintball gone too far — it's time to bail.

I feel like Professor X from the X-Men has lied to his pupils a thousand times, but the only examples I can think of are when he secretly suppressed Jean Grey's abilities in the third X-Men movie, and when he hid the fact that he was in love with Jean Grey in Ultimate X-Men. He also spared Magneto's life but told everyone he'd killed Magneto in Ultimate X-Men as well.

Takeaway lesson: If your mentor is secretly in love with you and is secretly holding you back and sabotaging your abilities, it maybe time to get mental on your mentor.

And then there's Bill Adama in the new Battlestar Galactica, who lies to his protegee Starbuck (and everyone else) about knowing the secret location of Earth. Laura Roslin tells Starbuck the old man has been lying, which leads to this exchange between Starbuck and Adama:

"How much longer 'til we reach Earth?" "It's hard to say." "You got a guess?" "You know I don't like to guess." "We getting closer?" "I'm sure we are. Good luck on the next test."

Finally, a pissed off Starbuck decides to obey the President's orders and go back to Caprica to get the Arrow of Apollo.

Takeaway lesson: If someone blows the whistle on your lying mentor, you may as well listen to the whistleblower instead. You can't do much worse, and you might get something useful out of it.

Other mentors we almost forgot include Sally Jupiter in Watchmen, who hides her daughter's true parentage from her. And the Confessor in Astro City, a superhero who hides his vampirism from his plucky sidekick. And of course Captain Beatty in Fahrenheit 451, who pressures Guy Montag to burn all of the books in his possession, and yet quotes constantly from books himself. Who did we forget?

Additional reporting by Lauren Davis and Meredith Woerner. Image by Stephanie Fox.

I resisted the temptation to include people like Katee Sackhoff, who's only done two shows: Battlestar Galactica and Bionic Woman. Or Scott Bakula. Or half the cast of Firefly, who've gone on to be on other things. I also decided to leave out Bruce Willis and Cilian Murphy, who have been in a lot of scifi but aren't really "scifi actors" in the way that Will Smith is. Who would you have included on this poll?

In any case, you needn't feel guilty about voting for a good actor in this poll. Everyone here is a good actor, but maybe one of these people should work in other genres for a while. (Which, to be fair, Smith did for a bit.)

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

The Theremin Era (1950s-1960s). The emphasis is on weird noises and screechy howls. Sometimes, it's an actual electronic scream, as in the Doctor Who theme, or to some extent the Outer Limits theme. Sometimes, it's an actual human trying to sound like a theremin, like the Star Trek theme's crazy opera singer. Either way, the message is clear: This is some freaky shit right here.

The Disco Era (late 1970s-early 1980s). You can totally boogie down to the theme tunes of Amazing Spider-Man, Bionic Woman or Logan's Run the series. Some themes, like Buck Rogers, try to sound sort of "adventure-y" and bring up associations with John Williams' heroic theme tunes for Star Wars and Superman: The Movie. But mostly the message is: groovy times ahead!!! Put on some tight pants and boogie!

The Orchestra Era (1990s). The themes from the two Star Trek TNG spin-offs, Babylon 5, Andromeda, Seaquest and even Time Trax all feature heroic-sounding strings and soaring horns. There's a strong melodic hook, but it's not as toe-tapping as the themes from the 70s and early 80s. Message: Epic saga (with heartstring-yanking) ahead.

The Alt-Country Era (early 2000s). Okay, so this was just two shows: Firefly and Enterprise. But it still felt like a mini-trend, especially since these were half the SF shows on TV at the time. You had the twangy voice, the deep soul-searching lyrics and the guitar anti-heroing. "Take my love, take my land, but you can't take my faith of the heart." Message: It's tough out here on the frontier.

The Weird Wailing Era (mid-2000s). All of a sudden, shows like the new Battlestar Galactica and Heroes featured a Middle Eastern-sounding person in distress, or just voices going "oooh" in the background. The new Doctor Who had a boppier version of the original theme, but whenever the Doctor acted mysterious, you'd hear a distinct "ooooh" sound in the background. In many ways, it's like a throwback to the theremin era. The message it sends: This is some freaky shit right here.

You've been involved in Firefly, Serenity and The 4400. Are you particularly attracted to science fiction or do you choose the the projects based on the roles?

Well, scifi has sort of chosen me! The first scifi I ever auditioned for was Firefly, and it was the first television series I'd ever read for too, as a regular. Scifi fans are so loyal, they love to see their actors working, and I think that's why I keep going back to doing scifi.

The characters that you've played are all superwomen who kick ass, but they've all been "tweaked" somehow, or in some cases aren't even human. Do you feel like that's anti-feminist?

Well, look at Lena's character. She's a powerful woman, but she's normal but thrust into extreme circumstances. I like playing roles that are very vulnerable, and I think that Cameron is very vulnerable. Even though she's a robot, there's a vulnerability about her because she's alone in this new reality. She's childlike in that she's absorbing everything around her and trying to fit in and find her place. That's what's interesting to me. I don't want to play a character that is one-dimensional. I think that the women, I've played, while they're powerful, they're also vulnerable, they're emotional, and they are multi-faceted.

We've hear that Joss Whedon likes his actors to have some input in their characters, did you do that when you played River Tam in Firefly?

Oh, you heard that did you? *laughs*

Was it true?

No, not for me! We don't change anything about the characters. Although it's important for every actor to answer their own questions about our characters... we used to joke with Joss like "Hey, I have idea for this scene!" And he'd be like, "Uh, yeah. We're doing it my way." *laughs*

I trust him completely, and there were days when I came for scenes and I didn't know how I was going to do them. If Joss hadn't been there, I would have been lost.

Let's say something magical happened tomorrow, and they said Firefly was coming back on the air. Would you be up for it?

You know, I never had another experience like Firefly. It was very different for me because I'd hardly worked before. I was like a little sister and it was a very safe environment for me. I've never had that since, and I would definitely go back in a heartbeat.

Your character changed the most on the show, going from an innocent, lost little girl to a superweapon who could kill everyone in the room at the drop of a hat. Did you bring some of that to the role as Cameron?

I've wanted to make them very different. My main concern when I got this role was 'How do you make people care about a robot?' I've been trying to do that in a lot of different ways. What happens in the show is that you're drawn to her and you start to care about her, but then you see her do something that is so cold, and so inhumane that it's scary. That's what I'm going for!

You have a background as a dancer, do you still do that?

I do, although it's not easy. I go to classes often. I have a very physical role and I have to work out a lot, but I'd much rather go to dance class than go to the gym.

Do you have any shows or projects coming up where you dance?

Well, you could ask Joss about that. We might have a little something coming up...

Firefly, the musical? Summer had to run off to her panel, but we'll be checking into this!

• Stargate: Bright played Orlin, an outcast "Ancient" (a humanoid race who claim to have started life in our galaxy, and now live on a higher plane of existence) who returns in the form of a human child. Apparently only a child's mind will allow him to keep the knowledge of the Ancients, but it slowly damages his brain and he can't remember anything. The best way he can show the onset of brain damage is: the blank stare.
• Ultraviolet: This time, he's a biogenetically engineered clone who may or may not contain a cure for a hemophagia, which turns normal people into vampires. Supposedly he's a vegetative clone without the ability to speak, although we later find out that isn't the case. However, he does play up this vegetative state throughout the first half of the film, and you can guess how he does that.
• X-Men: The Last Stand: this time Cameron plays a bald mutant who has the ability to cancel out mutant abilities in others. The government starts engineering a "cure" for mutants based on his DNA, and he spends most of his time staring at the wall or playing video games in a stark white cell.
• The 4400: Bright played Graham Holt, who developed the ability to make others worship him like a god. People started to dress like him and throw themselves at him in a sort of bizarre David Koresh kind of way. The charismatic's weapon of choice appeared to be staring blankly at his followers.

• Cameron doesn't have any science fiction film or television show appearances on the horizon, but you can never be sure where he'll pop up next. Just be sure to avert your eyes before his blank stare reaches you, or you'll be trapped like a deer in headlights.

• X-Files 2 takes place partly at a hospital, and involves organ transplants, judging from new set pics. [XFilesNews]
• The new Knight Rider's car will have a supercomputer that "can hack into any system." Ohhhkay. [SliceofSciFi]

• You'll see an eco-friendly Predator — who is willing to kill unarmed prey — in Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem. [IESB]
• A rescue crew may not be what it seems in Lost season four, judging from the trailer. [SeriouslyOMG]
• Hellboy will have a really big gun in Hellboy 2, and here's a pic. [Slashfilm]
• Garret Dillaunt (The 4400) will play the bad Terminator in the Sarah Connor Chronicles, replacing the pilot's Owain Yeoman. [SyFyPortal]
• It's official: the Romulans are in the new Star Trek movie. [UGO]

• Telekinesis: This power is the most common among the three. While the X-Men had "Marvel Girl" Jean Grey who could move things just by thinking about them, The 4400 have Richard Tyler and his mega-powered daughter Isabelle, both of whom share telekinesis. Of course, the first ability that Sylar ever took from anyone on Heroes was also telekinesss, which he put to extreme use by opening up people's brain cavities.
• Healing: Woverine's enviable healing ability has spawned numerous knockoffs, including both Claire and Takezo Kensei on Heroes. On The 4400, Shawn can't heal himself, but he does have the ability to heal others, and in a clever twist he can reverse this ability and injure others as well. While it doesn't have the instant pizazz that Wolverine and Claire get when they grow their own face back, it's a nice adaptation of that ability.
  
• Telepathy: The ability to read minds and project thoughts has long been a mainstay in the X-Men books, and The 4400 seem to have most of their powers stem from the mind. Last year police officer Matt Parkman on Heroes was the only person who could read minds, but this season he seems to be able to project his thoughts outwards to others as well. Isabelle on The 4400 is something of a wunderkind among the 4400, and counts telepathy as just one of her many abilities.
• Precognition: The ability to tell the future always seems to be popular, but it also always seems to come with a price. On Heroes, Isaac Mendez could paint visions of the future, but he couldn't escape his own death at Sylar's hand, which he had painted previously. The 4400's young Maia can see visions of the future, which she records in diaries. This is similar to the X-Men character called Destiny who also recorded her visions in diaries. Although she is now dead, her diaries were one of the main plot points of the 2001 — 2004 series "Xtreme X-Men."
• Creating illusions: Creating illusions and different realities for people happens in the X-Men with Psylocke, Candice does it on Heroes (until Sylar bashes her head in) as does Matt's father, and Alana on The 4400shares this trait. Matt's father can actually trap people in that reality, leaving their body in a comatose state, making him particularly nasty.

• Until Claire pops some claws out of her hands, or Isabelle starts calling herself Marvel Girl, we'll consider them more as loving tributes instead of a direct knockoff. Although The 4400 needs to stir things up a bit and start handing out some alternate powers. Heroes has them beat in that area, with new powers popping up every week. Of course, with Heroes' "Volume Two" wrapping up very soon, we'll see who survives the cut.