Science and Technology

Right
GPS will soon follow us everywhere, and inform people of everything we do. GPS cellphones, google latitude, and Twitter see to that.

Wireless networking between objects across a household. Wrong on the specifics, but completely right on concept.

Time says we'll still be addicted to videogames, but not in a format we'd recognise as a video game. The launch of Modern Warfare 2 disagrees with Time, and thinks standard video games are going strong, thank you.

Wrong
We will stop evolving. This prediction fails to take into account that evolution is something that can happen at the fringes of society, among the poor, dispossessed and dying. If a resistance to HIV/AIDS arises, guess where it would happen.

We'll be living on Mars. Time says we have the tech, and 2007 would be the best time to go! 2009 runs itself slowly down, and still no plans of a manned mission to Mars.

Airlines will modernise, and increase their efficiency. Nope. Instead, we're stuck with aging fleets, hidden costs, and increasingly insane behavior from the TSA.

Automakers will streamline their operations. Instead, they just went bankrupt, and got bailed out.

Computer processors will hit 10GHz by 2010. We haven't even seen 4GHz yet. Whose law?

Wait and see
We can find a universal theory of everything. They didn't know then, and we're still not sure.

Self-controlled cars by 2025. We're seeing better and more GPS systems. In 15 years, it's completely possible that we'll see cars patching into a network

Matter will be software, and you can download hardware. 3D printers are certainly here, but we're a long, long way from replicators.

E-ink will save us all! Paper content and video content will combine on a single device. The Apple tablet (or something similar) might just do this, but there are still issues with battery life, weight, and cost.

Biotech will make major inroads in manufacturing and information technology.

Energy

Wrong
We will never run out of oil! And never hit $100 per barrel! Sigh.

Climate Change and the Planet

Right
Global warming skeptics will continue to argue with scientists over climate change. Yup, that one's true, and the sides have become increasingly polarized. The article mentions a wide variety of scientists who approach climate change with varying degrees of acceptance. Since then, the vast majority of scientists accept human-influenced global climate change as fact, and dissenters are increasingly laypeople.

Wrong
Will we still eat meat? Not if we realize how badly it effects the planet. Hasn't stopped us yet!

Culture and Society

Right
Time says there will be no female Pope, but that women will have an increasing role in the churches. Given the conservative swing in electing Ratzinger as Pope, female clergy are highly unlikely in the Catholic church, even with declining numbers of priests.

Indie music will flourish on the internet. JoCo, if you're reading this, I <3 U.

Advertising will evolve from the cold call into the cross call, where your details come from another company. At least we got the "do not call" registry.

Time predicted short attention spans will call for short form comedy, which we see in 30 second bits on YouTube. Ironic humor and memes are not predicted.

Product placements and advertising inserts will increase in order to get more attention for ads. Sounds about right.

Wrong
Time thinks religion will replace politicians. Instead, we've seen politicians become increasingly tied to religion as a method of gaining power.

We'll be wired into sporting events to approximate the feel of being there. They're right about the impressive increase in technology for sports broadcasting, but stadiums are still filled for major games.

Electronic Media magazine predicted that local news would come to dominate the news cycle, due to the ease of producing digital content. Instead, local newspapers and channels are now mostly just grabbing content off the wires.

People won't stay home instead of going to movie theaters. Wrong, due to torrents, NetFlix, HD and large screen TVs

The elite of the future will be entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, they didn't account for the rise in prominence of the reality star, famous for merely existing.

The Chicago Tribune predicted that the first decade of the 21st century would be good for home builders. And it was, for most of the decade - and then everything imploded.

We won't have privacy, but common decency will stop people from prying. Nope, paranoia, wiretapping, Facebook and everything else have severely limited what we can keep as private. Common decency isn't stopping people from losing their benefits due to Facebook posts.

"Young employees will be in high demand, and hard to come by." Quotes supplied by your semi-employed blogger.

Wait and See
Teenagers will cease to exist in 20 years (2020). 10 years in, and they're still going strong, abusing prescription drugs, and borrowing the minivan

The Atlanta Journal and Constitution posited that by 2035, the population boom would have tailed off, but people would have an increasing desire for pets. That's still 25 years away, but we're not seeing it yet.

Nationalism will cause an increase in splinter nations. Apart from the usual suspects, there hasn't been a massive increase in Balkanisation over the last decade. However, the situation in Iraq was leaning that way for a period.

Cybersex might replace real sex. It hasn't happened yet, but you can link sex toys to video feeds or other people, which has certainly made cybersex more real.

China may surpass the United States. Unless India scoops them, this is still a strong possibility.

The rise of digital film. More directors are using it, but there's still plenty who aren't.

Health

Right
Drug resistant bacteria are on the rise. Completely right on this front.

Tissue manipulation will provide amazing therapeutic advances, especially through the use of stem cells. While there have been certain moral objections raised to the use of fetal stem cells, they, and other tissue based bioengineering techniques, are a bright spot in health research.

Wrong
Alternative medicine will fade beneath the hard light of the future. Homeopathy on the NHS says otherwise

Christopher Reeve will walk again. =(

Bespoke drugs from the pharmacy will be available in 2020.. Halfway there, and we're not seeing it.

Wait and See
We'll copy our brains to PCs by 2030. We're still a long, long way off.

Internet

Right
We won't ever log off the internet. Push notification and an iPhone seem to agree.

The rise of internet based software, circumventing the need to have desktop versions of everything. Hello, Google.

Targeted marketing through the internet. This continues to worsen, thanks to the likes of Facebook, which market to you based on personal details.

Wrong
AOL will own everything. We say "hello Google!" again.

Wireless providers will move beyond the phone. While 3G modems are around, it's more that the phone has evolved beyond what people thought the phone would be.

The Dangers of Lists

Some news-sources decided just to run mammoth lists, parts of which are right, part wrong. Here's a few of them, with our scores (in parens).

New York Times' 21 Brands To Watch in the 21st Century
Amazon.com
America Online (dead in the water)
Banana Republic (really?)
Dell
Dryel (who?)
ESPN (includes ESPN2, ESPN Magazine, ESPN Zone)
eBay (not doing so well these days)
Excite@Home (again, really?)
Fidelity Investments
Tommy Hilfiger
Krispy Kreme (points for delicious)
Lucent Technologies (now owned by Alcatal, had to cut back on paying retirement funds, and has a massively reduced workforce)
Mountain Dew (or mtn dew, as it's now known)
Nickelodeon (includes Nick at Nite)
Nintendo (they had some rough years there, but are doing damned well right now)
Nokia (really, really struggling at present)
Priceline.com (well, they've got the Shat working for them, so there's that)
SBC Communications (now part of AT&T)
Starbucks (definitely got that one right)
Vanguard
Yahoo (almost, but not quite, dead)

No Google or Apple? Twitter, Facebook and YouTube hadn't yet hit the scene.

Discover magazine's list of things you'll need to know by 2020.
You will need to know stuff you can hardly guess today (Fair enough)
You will need to know how to talk to your house (Not yet an issue for most people)
You will have to learn to drive a more automated car (Slowly filtering down to many new cars, like the BMW park assist)
You'll identify yourself, gain access to homes and businesses, and board aircraft after a laser has measured the shape of your irises (Not happening yet, we still rely heavily on ID cards of one sort or another.)
You'll need to know how to clean up that electronic trail day in and day out (Yes, yes, yes!)
You'll need to know enough to make more complicated medical choices (To a certain extent this is becoming true, but not drastically more than previous years.)
You'll need to access your betrothed's genetic map (Genetic testing is already available, and encouraged among some populations. )
We will have to face the fact that technology favors some and eclipses others (We're starting to see this already, despite efforts of groups like OLPC.)
You're going to have to somehow live while you watch a billion people starve (Not yet, but we might be close.)
You will always need to know if the facts you've dredged up are accurate and truthful
(While Wikipedia has probably increased the general accuracy of information trawled from the internet, many don't care about accuracy, and never will. The entire Birther movement is testimony to that.)
You will be forced to take on moral questions no human has ever faced
(Should I upload this video to YouTube, or not?)

Ray Kurzweil made some very interesting (and accurate) predictions for 2009, in his book The Age of Intelligent Machines. He seems to be on the right track, but just goes a little too far. While we don't have space to discuss every point here, he did predict the shrinking size of most computers (laptops, netbooks and smartphones); the increasing reliance on flash memory; wireless communications between devices; facial identification from images; video chat, and the rise of autotune.

On the other hand, he also thought a sub-$1000 petaflop computer would be available; computers would come in more shapes and sizes than we see; displays would meet print quality; tablet devices would be used in schools; most data would be entered via speech to text; walking exoskeletons would help the disabled; and that privacy would be a major political issue, rather than a personal one.

Granted, not all of these foods will actually devour you; some will simply kill you or turn you into their zombie slave. But all are best approached with caution, and should only be handled by chefs with combat training.

Killer Tomatoes (Attack of the Killer Tomatoes): After years of being made into ketchup and mistaken for vegetables, the tomatoes get their revenge, and a killer theme song.

The Stuff (The Stuff): It's not clear what would possess a man to taste a slimy substance he found out in the woods, but it turns out the Stuff is delicious, addictive, and contains no calories. It also turns out that the Stuff is alive, and it chews on your brain until you've transformed into a nice, pliable zombie.

Bubble Shock! (The Sarah Jane Adventures "Invasion of the Bane"): Another zombifying substance is Bubble Shock!, a fizzy organic beverage. But it's actually an alien life form, one that turns drinkers into slaves of Mother Bane. While it doesn't have quite the brain-mushing powers of the Stuff, Bubble Shock! has a viral quality, with Bane zombies offering the beverage to anyone who hasn't tried it.

Popplers (Futurama "The Problem with Popplers"): Another mysterious foodstuff found lying on the ground, popplers are incredibly delicious nuggets of meaty goodness. There are just two problems: first, popplers are intelligent; second, they're the juvenile form of the ornery Omicronians, and Lrrr, the Omicronian ruler, thinks it's only fair that he should get to eat a human to set things right.

The Blue Plate Special (Spaceballs): Poor John Hurt. When he tried to enjoy a meal in Alien, he had a chestburster pop right out of him. Then he sits down for the blue plate special at a diner in Spaceballs and meets with the same fate.

Curry Monster (Red Dwarf "DNA"): In a typically boneheaded move, the crew of the Red Dwarf test a DNA modifier on a container of vindaloo, creating a monster that's half man, half Indian takeaway.

Killer Pizzas (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles "Case of the Killer Pizzas"): The pizza-loving foursome find that sometimes their favorite food can get a case of the munchies. An alien species from Dimension X lays eggs that happen to look like meatballs, and they manage to land on a handful of pizzas. Pop your pizza in the microwave, and those little critters hatch mean and hungry.

TMNT - Case of the killer pizzas

Wolfbullet | MySpace Video

Pizza the Hut (Spaceballs): He's delicious enough that he ate himself to death, but woe unto those who cross this cheesy gangster. They'll learn what it's like to have Pizza send out for you.

Bezoar Eggs (Buffy the Vampire Slayer "Bad Eggs"): When Buffy and the crew are given eggs to babysit as a class assignment, it seems like a minor nuisance. But it turns out those aren't chicken eggs they're faux parenting; they actually hatch bezoars, little parasites that attach to your brain stem (and, like all good parasites, render you their zombie slave). And Xander gets a nasty surprise when he hardboils his egg son and decides to enjoy a mid-afternoon snack.

Evil Gingerbread Men (The Tick, The Gingerdead Man): Be they the product of an eager baker or possessed by the spirit of a serial killer, these confections can be downright deadly. You'd imagine, though, that milk would be a major weakness.

Werewolf (Angel "Unleashed"): Werewolf is considered a delicacy among certain sadistic members of the Los Angeles elite. Unfortunately, werewolves tend to revert to their human form once they're killed, so they have to be served alive while the meat is carved off. But if the werewolf isn't properly restrained, you could end up on the menu.

Wub ("Beyond Lies the Wub" by Philip K. Dick): Again, it's rarely a smart idea to eat a species you happen to find just hanging out on another planet, especially if it's capable of literary discussions. The pig-like wub will let you eat it, but there's a hefty price; the wub will completely take over your body, essentially booting out your soul through your stomach.

Martian Water (Doctor Who "The Waters of Mars"): Actually, you don't even need to drink water containing the Flood to contract its zombifying contagion — just touching it will do the trick. Still, drinking the water is ill-advised.

Kandy Man (Doctor Who "The Happiness Patrol"): The good news is that this licorice-based robot won't actually devour you. The bad news is that, if you aren't visibly happy at all times, it will kill you — likely by drowning you in super sugary fondant.

Stay Puft Marshmallow Man (Ghostbusters): Sure, Stay Puft nearly demolished the entire island of Manhattan in the service of Gozer. But that toasted marshmallow glop that dropped on the Ghostbusters at the end of the move looked mighty tasty.

Ebola Cola (Transmetropolitan): As the slogan goes, "You Drink It, It Eats You."

Aqua Teen Hunger Force (Aqua Teen Hunger Force): A mutated meatball, milkshake, and carton of french fries, the Aqua Teens get into all sorts of mayhem, which often gets various creatures (and occasionally Maser Shake) killed. I probably wouldn't put eating the remains past them either, given the right situation.

Triffids (Day of the Triffids): Triffids have a lot going for them. They're a great source of vegetable oil (making them valuable crops), and they can fight off any potential predators with their venomous whips. Plus, they love to feed on rotting meat, which is easy to obtain once most of humanity has been struck blind.

Tom Turkey (The Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror XIX"): Since it's Thanksgiving week, this musket-wielding bird will cap off our list. After rescuing the children of Springfield from the murderous Grand Pumpkin, Tom Turkey gets invited to Thanksgiving dinner. But once he learns what people eat on Thanksgiving, he starts gobble-gobbling up the children himself.

When we asked our friends to name their favorite swashbuckling heroes from SF books, first we had to figure out what exactly we meant by "swashbuckling." Here's what we came up with: A swashbuckling hero doesn't necessarily need to pack a sword — although it certainly doesn't hurt. A certain dapperness comes with the territory, or at the very least a unique sense of style. Words starting with "D" came up a lot, including dashing, debonair, defiant, dapper and daring.

What we found was that fantasy is full of swashbucklers — it's one of the hallmarks of the genre — but there are some amazing swashbucklers in science fiction too. (And we threw it open to include "urban fantasy," or anything which takes place in something akin to the modern world or the future.)

Here are our favorite swashbuckling heroes from science fiction books:

John Carter Of Mars (A Princess Of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs)

He's got the sword and the steely gaze, not to mention the old-school charm, and he's also got the mad adventures — the seemingly immortal Virginian gets zapped to Mars upon his "death" and wins the hand of the princess, Deja Thoris. He leads a company of Tharks to defeat the city-state of Zodanga, and then sacrifices his own life to save the atmosphere on Mars. (But then just winds up on Earth again.)

Here are some great Princess Of Mars covers and images, including some great art by Frank Frazetta:

Jack Half-A-Prayer (Perdido Street Station and Iron Council by China Mieville):

Even amongst all the other memorable and weird characters from Mieville's Bas-Lag universe, Jack Half-A-Prayer stands out, with his weird sense of style. One of the Remade, he's got a giant praying mantis arm, but instead of becoming downtrodden and full of self-loathing, he becomes a freedom fighter and a legend, until it finally catches up with him. Here's a great illustration of him that artist Nicholas William Kole created. (More of Kole's great art here.)

"Slippery" Jim DiGriz (The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison):

The first person that came to mind when we thought of this category — a grifter and adventurer who's always twenty jumps ahead of everybody else. Even though the love of a good woman softens him slightly, he never stops being a scoundrel. Still, if he ever runs for president on your planet, you'd be crazy not to vote for him.

Frank Rozvar (The Skies Discrowned/Forsake The Sky by Tim Powers):

As Earth's empire crumbles in the distant future, Frank Rozvar sees his father murdered, and is forced to flee to Munson Underground, the city under the planet's surface. He plots revenge — and it's a good thing he's an expert fencer as well as a stylish bastard. Although, as my friend Bill notes, Powers' early heroes tend to be more "grim and gritty" than "dashing and dapper."

The Librarians (The Greatwinter Trilogy by Sean McMullen):

Many buckles are swashed by these dragon librarians in a post-apocalyptic 40th century setting. They're forever fighting ritual duels, including battles (with very strict rules) in airships. These books are packed with derring-do and Errrol Flynn-esque feats of bravery and cunning.

Duncan Idaho (Dune by Frank Herbert):

This swordmaster in the service of House Atreides is a ladies man and an expert student of the Swordmasters Of Ginaz. The Harkonnens kill his parents and raise him to be hunted for sport — but he gets away. One of Duke Leto's right-hand men, he trains Paul in the arts of war. And when he gives his life to defend Paul and Jessica, he takes down no less than 17 Sardaukar soldiers.

Cugel The Clever (The Dying Earth books by Jack Vance):

A thief and scoundrel, Cugel displays tons of rambunctiousness and skullduggery. But he's also a dab hand with a sword, and he's very dapper with his triple-tiered hat, adorned with a "foppish bedazzlement." His roguish ways and indefatigible charm have won him his own Facebook group.

Speaker-To-Animals (Ringworld by Larry Niven):

One of the coolest of Niven's Kzinti, Speaker-To-Animals is slightly less likely to kill you on sight than other members of his race, but he's still a superb fighter and a total badass. He's too honorable to kill Louis Gridley Wu for meat, even when he's starving. Typical line: "I have a variable sword. I urge calm." Bad. Ass. (Art by A.C. Farley.)

Anthony Villiers (Star Well by Alexei Panshin):

A former viscount, Villiers gets fobbed off by his family and travels around the universe in the company of a giant toad named Torve, having crazy adventures. He's always getting himself caught up in duels and assassination plots, as he moves through the highest levels of galactic society without ever quite having enough money on hand. He's foppish, following the motto "Live as you dress" and doing both of those things well.

Drake Maijstral (Crown Jewels, House of Shards, &Rock of Ages by Walter Jon Williams):

Maijstral is an Allowed Burglar in a distant future when the human race has been conquered by aliens called the Khosali, who have subjected us to their regime of High Custom. Under this complicated set of rules, you can steal — as long as you hang on to the merchandise for 24 hours without getting caught. (One of the Khosali emperors was a kleptomaniac who wanted to legalize theft, hence the odd compromise.) Since all of Maijstral's exploits are recorded and broadcast, he becomes a huge celebrity with a great sense of verve and style.

Hiro Protagonist (Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson):

Protagonist's business card says it all: "Last of the freelance hackers and Greatest swordfighter in the world." He learns of the existence of a new drug called Snow Crash, that's both a computer virus and a reality-altering substance. He's the undisputed champion of in-Metaverse sword-fighting, because he helped write the code which makes swordfighting possible.

E.C. Gordon, aka Scar, aka Oscar (Glory Road by Robert Heinlein):

This war veteran answers an ad that asks, "Are You A Coward," placed by a beautiful woman. Then he goes on a quest and crosses swords with the Never-Born aka the Eater Of Souls, the guardian of the Egg of the Phoenix in Mile High Tower. (For some reason, the Eater Of Souls appears as a 17th century swordsman.)

Beka Rosslin-Metadi (The Price Of The Stars by Debra Doyle and James D. McDonald):

Okay, just look at the jacket, and the red eyepatch. And she's an amazing space pilot, freebooter and spacer by trade — who's turned her back on her famous military family. Until her mom is assassinated, and her father gives her the best spaceship around, the Warhammer, to look for the assassins. She leaves "a trail of kidnappings and corpses across four star systems," and blows the roof off the strongest private fortress in the galaxy. Rock on.

Pham Nuwen (A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge):

Pham grows up in a post-apocalyptic Canberra that's similar to the Middle Ages, complete with swords, daggers and poison. Then the Qeng Ho arrive and he leaves with them. He becomes a legendary commander and Programmer-At-Arms. At one point, Pham Nuwen is held prisoner by some idiots, and he realizes that the computers on the ship had used smart dust long ago — which means he can hack into the computers by blinking, without anyone noticing.

Ed Chianese (Light by M. John Harrison)

Thrill-seeker, adventurer and virtual-reality addict, Ed Chianese "owes money to everyone in the universe." Writes Harrison, "From an early age, Ed Chianese had been some kind of drifter and sensationist. He couldn't remember what planet he came from. 'Maybe it was even this one!' He laughed." With his peroxide hair and cheap tattoos, he's dapper after a fashion.

Giraut Leones (A Million Open Doors by John Barnes):

Giraut lives in Nou Occitan, which is sort of like medieval Europe, with the dueling, the chivraly and the artistic dabbling. But then he goes to live in another one of the thousand human cultures in the far future — the sterile Caledony, which is like a McCarthy-ite, Christian repressive world. So he becomes the rebellious, sword-fighting hero of this crazy world.

Jay Kalam and his cohorts (Legion Of Space Series by Jack Williamson):

Kalam is commander of the Legion, and just in case you miss the Three Musketeers-i-ness of his group of stalwart fighters against the renegade Purple and the evil Medusae, one of his friends is named Samdu (an anagram of "Dumas.")

Owen Deathstalker (Deathstalker by Simon Green):

Heir to a warrior name, Owen Deathstalker lives a quiet life as a historian, until the Empress names him an outlaw, and he's forced to flee, and help organize the rebellion against the Empress Lionstone.

Additional reporting by Mary Ratliff. Thanks to Bill Brickman, Jed Hartman, Chris Hsiang, Andrew Liptak, Dennis Woo, Wayne Nix, Angela Cooper, Zack Stentz, Tim Jones, Jonathan Korman, Tom Marcinko, Espana Sheriff, Richard Kadrey, Chris Hall, Allan Ebalo, David J. Schwartz, @RainOnRoof, Jenn Reese, John Klima, another Tim Jones, Cheryl Morgan and anyone else I missed for the suggestions!

Comics have a grand problem of continuity. Long-lived characters have been starring in multiple monthly titles for years, amounting to thousands of issues, not counting guest stars, crossovers, and tie-ins. And every single one of those issues counts. With retroactive continuity, maybe our heroes fought a clone; or it was a dream; or the whole thing took place in a parallel reality; or someone didn't die, and instead someone took their unconscious body and healed them. Sometimes it's handled well, with good characterisation and a soft touch. But mostly, it isn't. Here are some of the worst, most ham-fisted and generally clumsy ways of dealing with problems in the history of your character.

One More Day/Brand New Day

During the events of Marvel's Civil War crossover, Spider-man revealed his secret identity to the public, making him and his family a massive target for all the would-be assassins, crime-lords and supervillains around. At the same time, Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Queseda had been publicly expressing his distaste for Spider-Man's marraige to Mary Jane for years, on the grounds that it aged the character too much.

Quesada wanted to return Spidey to his roots, bring back down-on-his-luck Peter Parker, still living with his Aunt May, still struggling to pay for webfluid and get by day-to-day. And of course, he did it in the clumsiest way possible. He took over writing this series when outgoing writer, J. Michael Straczynski didn't want to pen the revisions Quesada proposed. In "One More Day," Aunt May gets accidentally shot by a sniper, and lays in hospital, on the verge of death. And Spider-man makes a deal with the devil, literally. Mephisto, Marvel's Satan stand-in, saves Aunt May, but in exchange he would take the happy marriage of Peter and MJ, and make it as though it had never happened. So, Peter gave up his beautiful, loving wife in order to extend the life of his already elderly and frequently ill Aunt. In the process, the entire planet forgot his identity, and Peter and Mary Jane's daughter would never come to be. Well, to be fair, MJ made the final decision, but the whole concept made no sense, and avoided any explanations by just saying "it's magic!"

Xornneto

When Grant Morrison took over X-Men, he introduced some radical changes, including the concept of secondary mutations, and the idea that at their current rate, Mutants would soon out-populate normal humans. He also introduced into Xavier's school the character of Xorn, a Chinese mutant with a star for a head, who had spent years imprisoned, and became a teacher for some of the more troubled students at the institute. Xorn eventually revealed he was Magneto in disguise, and died in a giant battle, along with Jean Grey.

However, almost immediately afterwards, it was decided that Magneto was too high-profile to kill for real — so a retcon established that Xorn was NOT Magneto (who was alive and kicking in Genosha). Instead, Xorn was a real person under the influence of another mutant. Then, just for kicks, they introduced another Xorn, a twin to the first, so they could keep the character around. So rather than sticking with a dramatic and powerful moment, as originally written by Morrison, the new writers tossed out the crux of his final arc to preserve the status quo.

Superboy Prime Punches Reality

DC's continuity has always been plagued by issues of multiple realities, which were used as the original way to differentiate Golden Age versions of characters from the Silver Age. During DCs Crisis on Infinite Earth, through the cataclysmic arrival of the Anti-Monitor, all of these timelines were merged into one, dealing away with all the confusion once and for all. Several characters from these dead universes were tucked away in a pocket universe, including Superboy Prime, who came for a reality where he was the only superpowered character. He and Kal-L, the Golden Age Superman, eventually become so angry at the dark and gritty nature of the current DC universe, that Superboy Prime punches a hole through reality. Yup, he punches reality so hard, that it shatters, creating the multiverse, and retconning various story problems, including bringing the 1980s Robin, Jason Todd, back to life. That is the power of the retcon punch.

As a side note, an absolutely excellent version of the Superboy Prime story was told a few years ago in Superman: Secret Identity by Kurt Busiek and Stuart Immonen, which is well worth tracking down.

Power Girl's Origin
Originally, Power Girl was the Earth-2 version of Supergirl, a cousin to Superman who arrived long after he did, but with the same sort of powers. However, after the aforementioned Crisis on Infinite Earths, there was no more Earth-2, nor had there ever been. However, Power Girl existed on the main Earth, so she needed a new origin. So instead of making her another Kryptonian survivor (or something similar),she was revealed to be a descendant of the Atlantean sorcerer Arion, who lay in suspended animation for a thousand years before being revived in the current day. Did this make any sense? Nope. Did it gel at all with her old background? Not in the slightest. This stupidity was thankfully forgotten, and during Infinite Crisis, they just decided she was Supergirl from another dimension, and left it at that.

Gwen Stacy Slept With Norman Osborn

Gwen Stacy's death at the hands of the Green Goblin is considered one of the pivotal moments in Spider-man's history, and remains an incredibly poignant scene. However, during JMS's run on Spider-man, he gave her two children. Originally, his plan was that they be Peter's, and that she had them in secret. However, the editorial team decided that giving Spider-man two grown children would — wait for it — age Peter Parker too much.

Instead, they decided that Norman Osborn would be the father. That's right, Gwen Stacy hooked up with creepy old billionaire Osborn, got pregnant with twins, and kept them from Osborn — which is why he killed her. Then, he trained the twins to become assassins, to hunt down Spider-man.

Wolverine

Wolverine's entire history is just one crappy retcon piled on top of another. How's this for a start? Wolverine was originally meant to be an actual wolverine, who had been turned into a human by the high evolutionary, and his claws were part of his gloves. Then the claws became implants created by Weapon X, and he was a mutant. Then he was meant to be Sabertooth's son. Then it turns out he'd had bone claws all along, and they were just covered up with metal. Recently, however, things have started getting even weirder for Logan.

It turns out Wolverine now isn't a mutant, but rather a Lupine, a human looking species that evolved in parallel to humans — but from wolves, not apes. And there are two tribes: one with blond hair, the other with dark hair, and they hate each other — which is why Sabertooth hates Wolverine so much. They're not the only two, either — other Lupine's include Wolfsbane, Feral, Wild Child and Thornn. So pretty much ever feral mutant isn't actually a mutant, but a wolf person. They're all being manipulated by an almost immortal elder Lupine called Romulus.

Wolverine's healing factor has also suffered from major power creep over the years, expanding from "he can heal faster than most", to "was left as a skeleton after a major explosion, and healed completely within seconds." So to de-power him slightly, a retcon established that every time he dies, Wolverine has to fight the spirit of death to return to the living. Since WWI, he has been in constant combat with a being known as Lazaer (the worst anagram since Alucard), and his soul cannot return to his body unless he defeats Lazaer in limbo, each time. After some jiggerypokery with the resurrected version Shingen, Lazaer and Wolverine ended their constant battle — so if Wolverine dies again, it's for real.

Jean Grey and the Phoenix Force

This one is the great Grandaddy of weird retcons. Phoenix/Jean Grey took her own life after losing control of the awesome magnitude of the Phoenix Force, and accidentally devouring an inhabited planet. Cyclops was unsurprisingly bummed, hooked up with a clone of Jean, had a baby, which was then sent to the future to become Cable. However, a few years later, the writers wanted to bring Jean Grey back. So they decided that she was never Phoenix, instead the Phoenix Force created a simulacrum of her, and the real one was kept in stasis, deep beneath the ocean. Problem solved.

The Third Summers Brother?

Two of the X-Men, Cyclops and Havok, are brothers. At one point, the villainous Mr. Sinister dropped hints that there was in fact a third Summers brother, which would throw another powerful energy user into the X-Men universe. The originally planned extra brother was to be Adam X the X-Treme, also known as "the 90s personified". He had the power to combust blood, but only if someone was already cut, so he covered himself with blades (and wore a totally rad backwards cap). He was meant to be half human, half an alien Shi'ar, a product of the rape of his mother by the Shi'ar Emperor.

This origin story was used, instead, for the actual third Summers brother, Vulcan. He was retroactively introduced in 2006, when it was revealed that Charles Xavier sent him and a team to go rescue his missing X-Men decades ago. Unfortunately, the whole team was lost, and Xavier mind-wiped everyone to forget about it. The end product? Xavier was a dick, and Vulcan flew into space to become the Emperor of the Shi'ar.

Nightcrawler Is A Demon

Chuck Austen's run on X-Men is regarded by many readers as the low point for Marvel's mutant titles. In addition to adding a Mary Sue version of his wife, as well as making Havoc his own avatar; and having Angel have sex with the then underage Husk in front of her family, he also tweaked a couple of characters in a rather odd way. The most notable of these was to explain Nightcrawler's demonly looks as a result of him actually being part-demon. Turns out that Nightcrawler's mother, Mystique, hooked up with the demon Azazel, who sired a number of teleporting mutant babies, in the hopes of them breaking him out of Hell. So, Kurt Wagner, the almost priest and one of the most religious of the X-Men, was actually half demon

Rape Makes You Deep

Black Cat, Catwoman, Sue Dibny. What links these characters? They had rape retconned into their background as a way of making them edgier. It's lazy writing, offensive, and a cheap ploy to pad out the background of the characters. Sue Dibny's was particularly bad, because it was used as part of the Identity Crisis crossover, which helped turn DC into a far more dark 'n' gritty place, with almost no place for frivolity or fun.

Hal Jordan and The Space Bug

When Hal Jordan turned into the maniacal Parallax, it was originally a story of a superhero who cracked under the weight of his responsibilities. The entire population of his hometown, Coast City, was killed by the villainous Mongol, and Hal Jordan was driven mad with grief. Convinced that with more power he could bring them back to life, Jordan slaughters his way through the Green Lantern Corps and the Guardians of the Universe, and absorbs a huge amount of power, becoming the villain Parallax.

Hal eventually redeems himself, re-igniting the Sun and thus sacrificing his life, during a storyline called Final Night. The retcon was that Hal Jordan didn't break under the grief of the deaths of 7 million people that he'd sworn to protect, but rather he was under the influence of a yellow space bug called Parallax, which was the personification of fear. Thus, Hal Jordan came back as an unblemished character, who never did anything wrong.

Cassandra Cain Goes Evil, Gains Mastery of English Language

Cassandra Cain was the modern Batgirl. Trained as an assassin from a young age, she rebelled against her past to join the Bat family. She kicked ass and took names, but couldn't speak, read or write. Eventually, she managed to learn basic English, and became a core figure in the Bat books, and a tireless crime fighter. Then, during the One Year Later timeshift, she suddenly had a perfect grasp of English, and was the leader of the League of Assassins, the same organization that had brutally trained and abused her since her childhood, and from which she had escaped. This was eventually explained through mind control drugs, but was still completely out of character.

Hawkman, Reincarnated Egyptian or Space Cop?

Originally, Hawkman was an archaeologist who turned out to be the reincarnation of an Egyptian prince. He flew around with wings made of the mysterious Nth metal, and hit things with a mace. Accompanying him was his reincarnated girlfriend, Hawkgirl. Then, in the Silver Age, DC made Hawkman and Hawkgirl space cops from the planet Thanagar.

Following this, there were multiple interpretations of the characters, sometimes simultaneously — the Hawks were reincarnated Egyptian lovers, alien police officers, or some combination of both. New background and retcon piled on top of one another, until no one knew what the actual background of everyone's favorite flying violence users. Just when you thought they couldn't get any more confusing, a 1990s comic explained that Hawkman was actually a Native American shaman who talked to spirit guide animals.

Presently, it's been established that all incarnations, regardless of origin, are the reincarnated souls of those Egyptian lovers, who were then exposed to Thanagarian technology. Their love is so powerful that it's become the source of all energy for all the Star Sapphires, superpowered women, in the current run of Green Lantern.

Teenage Tony Stark

At some point in the terrifying decade of comics known as the 90s, we learned that Iron Man (Tony Stark) had been under the control of Kang the Conqueror for years. Tony turned evil and killed someone. (Later, it was retconned that this wasn't actually Kang the Conqueror, but another villain, Immortus, in disguise.)

So, naturally, the Avengers went into an alternate timeline, and brought a teenaged Tony Stark forward in time to the present to fight the older Tony. Don't ask. So for a while, Tony was a teenager, until teenage Tony was killed fighting Onslaught, and adult Tony was brought back to life in another parallel universe, during the Heroes Reborn event. Eventually, this was folded in to normal Marvel continuity, and everyone forgot it ever happened. Bad writing, covered with bad retcons, and best forgotten.

Spider-man, Avatar of The Spider God

Spider-man was originally a science hero. Bitten by a radioactive spider, Peter Parker gained the proportional strength of an arachnid, the ability to cling to walls, and the uncanny ability to sense danger. Fashioning mechanical web-shooters, he fought crime as the Spectacular/Amazing/Friendly Neighborhood Spider-man.

After the massive success of the first Spider-man film, though, he was given biological web shooters, to make him more in line with the movie version. Under the stewardship of writer J. Michael Straczynski, it was revealed that the bite that brought Peter his powers wasn't a coincidence, but rather Peter was linked to a totemic Spider God who influenced him. Shortly after, Peter was mortally wounded, built a cocoon, and came out with additional powers, including wrist stingers, a poisonous bite, the ability to talk to arthropods, and night vision. Another side effect of Brand New Day was everyone, including Spider-man, forgetting about his new powers.

This has been the dream of science-fiction fans and science-fiction authors since the days of "Clone Of My Own" (which is usually attributed to Isaac Asimov, but who knows if it's actually by him?) "Clone Of My Own" goes:

Oh, give me a clone
Of my own flesh and bone
With its Y chromosome changed to X.
And after it's grown,
Then my own little clone
Will be of the opposite sex.

Clone, clone of my own,
With its Y chromosome changed to X.
And when I'm alone
With my own little clone
We will both think of nothing but sex.

There are about 29 versus more, but you get the idea. Actually, after reading authors like John Varley and Ursula K. Le Guin, the whole idea of the "opposite" sex has been thrown into question — surely, once we can all reconfigure our bodies at will, eventually we'll have some sort of sex tesseract.

But for now, here are the ways that science fiction offers, for us to meet our opposite-sex duplicates (and in some cases, have sex with them):

1) Cloning.

House Of Suns by Alastair Reynolds:

Abigail Gentian, a wealthy woman, decides to explore the vastness of the stars — she she has herself cloned a number of times, and some of the clones are male while others are female. They all share Abigail's memories, and Abigail herself joins them without knowing which of them is the "real" her. And these "shatterlings" have sex — a lot. Especially in the novella Thousandth Night, there are tons of orgies in which all of the clones get together, making it a certainty that the "real" Abigail has been with her clones.

Time Enough For Love by Robert A. Heinlein:

Lazarus Long is the world's oldest human, and he decides not to undergo rejuvenation therapy, thus sentencing himself to death. His descendants convince him to keep on living, but he'll only do it if he gets to have a new experience — so two of his descendants become impregnated with opposite-sex clones of Lazarus. And after the opposite-sex clones of Lazarus are born, Lazarus raises them as his own daughters... and then has sex with them, of course.

"Nine Lives" by Ursula K. Le Guin:

This Nebula-nominated novelette, first published in Playboy, features a set of clones of a man named John Chow who died in a car accident, and some of them are female:

"All chips off the old block," Martin said valiantly. "But how can . . . some of you be women . . .?"

Beth took over: "It's easy to program half the clonal mass back to the female. Just delete the male gene from half the cells and they revert to the basic, that is, the female. It's trickier to go the other way, have to hook in artificial Y chromosomes. So they mostly clone from males, since clones function best bisexually."

Sadly, nine out of ten clones are killed, forcing the remaining clone to deal with unaccustomed solitude.

The Ophiuchi Hotline by John Varley:

The character Tweed has clones who are male and female clones of the same individual, called Vaffa or sometimes Hygeia. They're super-strong, super-big and lethal.

NYX and various other X-Men comics:

X-23, a female clone of Wolverine, first appeared in the X-Men: Evolution animated series, but then made the leap to comics, just like Harley Quinn. Despite looking kind of silly, she's manage to stick around long enough to get her own miniseries and have her backstory explained. I don't think she and Logan ever hooked up, but they have fought, which is almost the same thing when you come down to it.

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy:

As Zaphod Beeblebrox explains, the girl Lintilla "has now been cloned over five-hundred-and-seventy-eight-thousand-million times - and has thus created a problem in some quarters." All of the Lintilla clones are female — but the anti-clones, sent to get rid of the infestation of female clones, are male versions of Lintilla called Allitnil. When a Lintilla and an Allitnil come together, he gets the Lintilla to "agree to cease to be" — but Arthur Dent takes a liking to one of the Lintillas, and kills her particular Allitnil.

Hunted by James Alan Gardner:

Edward York is an illegal clone of one of the Admirals on the High Council, and due to genetic problems he's a bit stupid. But a female clone of the Admiral, named Samantha, turns out super-smart and resourceful. Together, Edward and Samantha travel, as brother and sister, travel to the planet Troyen to try and negotiate a peace between two alien species, the Mandasars and the Fasskisters.

Kyle XY:

Kyle and his fellow vat-baby Jessi aren't strictly speaking clones, because I think they had different genetic stock — as far as I can remember, Kyle came from Adam and Jessi came from Sarah. But they do come from the same vat, and they resulted from the same super-baby program. So they could be considered akin to clones, sort of. Worth mentioning, anyway.

Ultimate Spider-Man: Ultimate Clone Saga:

Can't believe I forgot this one, since I have the trades at home. In the Ultimate version of the Clone Saga, they clone Peter Parker several times... including a female version called Jessica Drew. And Jessica has all of Peter's memories — S.H.I.E.L.D. wants to erase Jessica's memories and set her up with a new identity, but she escapes and takes on the identity of Spider-Woman. Thanks, kwschuttler!

2) Alternate universes

Parallellities by Alan Dean Foster:

Max, the main character of this novel travels through the multiverse, and finally meets an alternate female version of himself — and has sex with her. Later, he manages to find an entire planet populated by copies of himself. As the back cover copy explains:

Now Max was lost in a virtual sea of collateral worlds, confronting man-eating aliens, dinosaurs, talking frogs, dead Maxes, girl Maxes, old Maxes, even ghost Maxes. His only chance to escape the space-time continuum was to find Boles and hope the loony genius could rescue him. But how could he be sure which world was real, which Max was Max, and which Boles was the Boles who could stop the madness—or trap Max in the wrong world forever. . . ?

Red Dwarf, "Parallel Universe":

Our gang finds a device that's supposed to transport them home to Earth instantly — but instead it zaps them into an alternate universe. There, they meet alternate versions of themselves, including female versions of Lister and Rimmer (and Cat's counterpart is a Dog.) Rimmer has to fight off his female counterpart's sexual advances, while Lister actually does wind up in bed with his female version, Deb. And because in this alternate universe, it's the men who get pregnant, Lister winds up carrying his alternate self's baby.

Sliders:

Thanks to Xicer for pointing out this one: in the episode "Double Cross," Quinn meets an evil female duplicate of himself from (of course) another universe, and almost makes out with her:

Transition by Iain Banks:

This dimension-jumping novel mentions that it's quite common to enter the body of your alternate-universe self and find that the alternate self is the opposite sex. This is a known syndrome, which causes some discomfort or confusion among the universe-hoppers whom it happens to.

3) Time travel

"All You Zombies" by Robert A. Heinlein:

This story features a young man who's tricked into impregnating his younger, female self — because it turns out he had a futuristic sex change at some point, which the reader doesn't realize at first. And then it turns out that he's actually the child of that union, meaning that he's his own mother and father — the mother of all time paradoxes, in other words.

The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold:

Daniel Eakins travels backwards and forwards in time many times, meeting himself and having sex with himself — over and over and over. But after a ton of trips, he actually meets an alternate-universe version of himself who was born female, and they shack up together at the beginning of time. It goes great for a while, until they get fed up with each other, and then Daniel's time-traveling female counterpart manages to erase herself completely from Daniel's timeline, so Daniel can never find her again.

Needless to say, this post would not have been nearly as fascinating without TVTropes.org, the fountain of all greatness. Additional reporting by Josh C. Snyder.

Eco-Apocalypse

2012: It's pure global catastrophe in Roland Emmerich's film. Earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions — every possible natural disaster seems to conspire to wipe out all life on Earth.

Decipher by Stel Pavlou: The year 2012 sees an increase in solar flare activity as scientists see unusual energy signals coming from Antarctica. It soon becomes clear that the sun could be on the verge of triggering a deluge, and all the world's cities could go the way of Atlantis.

Death from the Skies

2012: Supernova: If you're looking for something beyond the usual asteroid strike, here's a different sort of celestial doomsday. A nearby star goes supernova, threatening the Earth's survival, prompting an international team of scientists to launch nuclear warheads to reduce the effect of the impact.

2012: Doomsday: On December 21, 2012, one day before the predicted apocalypse, it is revealed that a celestial object is about to collide with Earth. But this time, it's religion, not science that averts the ultimate disaster.

World War III

Blood of the Beast: Roughly half the population dies in the war of 2012, but the world's chemical weapons render nearly all the men on Earth sterile. The world is repopulated by clones, but 19 years after the first clones are harvested in 2012, the world goes to pot once again.

Zombie Plague

Zombies: A Record of the Year of Infection: The dead start rising early in 2012, and soon the plague has spread across much of North America. And corporate greed has ensured that you can become a zombie even if you've never encountered the walking dead.

I Spit On Your Rave: The film doesn't get released until next year, but its zombie apocalypse starts at the 2012 London Olympics, when a virus is released. Humanity is quickly gobbled up, leaving the zombies to their own devices.

Alien Invasion

The X-Files: Alien colonization has always been a distinct probability in the X-Files universe, and in the episode "The Truth," the Cigarette Smoking Man reveals the date of invasion: December 22, 2012.

2012: The War of Souls by Whiley Strieber: Michael Bay is looking to adapt this tale of alien invasion. It turns out that the world's ancient monuments provide a gateway for alien invaders looking to conquer Earth and eat humanity's souls. And, if the invasion is not prevented in time, the gateways will open December 21, 2012.

RahXephon: The end of the Long Count Calendar marks another alien invasion, this one by the Mulians. The Mu declare war on humanity and enclose the city of Tokyo inside a spherical barrier.

Domain Trilogy by Steve Alten: Scientists may suggest that the dinosaurs were killed off by a meteorite, but the truth is that they fell prey to an ancient weapon buried beneath the Gulf of Mexico. And, if we don't learn the truth about those extraterrestrial exterminators by December 2012, we could be next.

Doctor Who "Dalek": Fortunately, the Doctor and Rose manage to stop Henry van Statten's captive Dalek before it can surface from his Statten's Utah bunker in 2012. Otherwise, the Dalek could have very well exterminated a good chunk of humanity.

A Glitch in the System

Wapsi Square: It's not that the Mayans predicted the end of the world in 2012, it's just that the quantum clock that runs the world must be reset at precisely the time and date the Long Count Calendar runs out. Otherwise, time resets back to an earlier point in time, trapping us all in a time loop. But you won't notice it — after all, it's happened several times before.

Goats: After the untimely demise of God, the Mayan programming firm One Death was hired to keep the multiverse going. Unfortunately, a glitch in the system will cause the multiverse to crash on December 21, 2012, unless the prophesied Programmer can be located in time.

PW2: 2012 by MC Miller: Former professor Hamilton Ray begins to notice strange patterns and synchronicities in in the universe, and develops a theory about a Probability Wave, something that's about to bring about a radical change in the universe at the end of 2012.

The World Is Radically Transformed

The Invisibles by Grant Morrison: The world as we know it may come to an end on December 22, 2012, but it's hardly doomsday. Instead, humanity ascends to the Supercontext, the next level of existence, at the word of Jack Frost.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure by Hirohiko Araki: The priest Enrico Pucci acquires the stand Made in Heaven, which gives its user the power to rewrite the universe. And in 2012, Pucci attempted to remake the universe to suit his master Dio Brando. However, Pucci died before the universe could be completely rewritten, causing it to return to something close to its original form.

Shadowrun: Similarly, the world doesn't end in the Shadowrun universe, but as the Mayan calendar resets, the world undergoes a dramatic transformation. Magic returns to the Earth, allowing individuals, governments, and corporations to utilize a potent combination of cutting edge technologies and newly harnessed magic.

Additional reporting by Josh Snyder.

Additional reporting by Josh Snyder.

Gossamer (Looney Tunes)
Cute? Look at him. He's basically a hairy valentine in tennis shoes.
Terrifying? He tries hard, but he's ultimately no match for Bugs Bunny. Then again, no one is.

Giant Killer Rabbits (Night of the Lepus)
Cute? They're your average giant mutant bunny rabbits.
Terrifying? Actually, they just seem more adorable when they're gigantic and raiding people's kitchens. But I suppose that whole eating people business could be scary. Maybe.

Beep the Meep (Doctor Who)
Cute? Passably. It helps that he looks like giant puffball.
Terrifying? Absolutely. Meeps are a murderous species who revel in pain, torture, and galactic domination. And Beep is the worst of the worst and a notorious war criminal.

Stay Puft Marshmallow Man (Ghostbusters)
Cute? He's basically a giant version of the Pillsbury Dough Boy. Plus, I've had a soft spot for him since the cartoon.
Terrifying? He nearly destroys New York with his deliciously sugary body.

Lenore, the Cute Little Dead Girl
Cute? It's right there in the name.
Terrifying? Not on purpose, but let's just say you should probably keep your pets (and yourself) clear of Lenore.

Hello Cthulhu
Cute? He might be an unspeakable horror, but he's a huggable one.
Terrifying? Honestly, he's no match for Hello Kitty.

Mogwai (Gremlins)
Cute? Sure, for now.
Terrifying? Just try feeding them after midnight and see if they're still they're still so cute.

Wolvogs (Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood)
Cute? These genetically engineered dog-wolf hybrids look like adorable domesticated puppies.
Terrifying? They may look like dog pups, but wolvogs hunt and kill as vicious wolves.

Beryllium Miners (Galaxy Quest)
Cute? They look like little children, at least until they open their mouths.
Terrifying? They look like they'd happily chow down on any of the Galaxy Quest cast members.

Were-Rabbit (Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit)
Cute? Just about everything Nick Park designs is at least a little bit cute.
Terrifying? He's a strictly vegetarian monster.

Audrey II (Little Shop of Horrors)
Cute? Despite the teeth and the thirst for human blood, she is pretty cute when she's small.
Terrifying? Even forgetting the business about eating people and wanting to take over the world, Audrey II's most frightening aspect is her ability to convince milquetoast Seymour to kill for her.

Goblins (Labyrinth)
Cute? In an adorably ugly sort of way.
Terrifying? They're by no means the most critters in Labyrinth, but they do an impressive job of slinking around in the shadows and stealing infants.

Shmee (Squee)
Cute? Squee's teddy bear has seen better days, but he's still cuter than the Doughboys from Johnny the Homicidal Maniac.
Terrifying? Shmee provides emotional comfort for the perpetually terrified Shmee, but he also encourages Shmee to take violent revenge on his enemies. Of course, it could all be in Shmee's head.

Pac-Man (Blade: Trinity)
Cute? If you happen to like pomeranians.
Terrifying? It wasn't enough to make a vampire pomeranian; the vamps of Blade: Trinity had to create a mutant vampire pomeranian with xenomorph mouth.

Woodland Critters (South Park)
Cute? In a Disney sort of way.
Terrifying? Anything that comes out of Cartman's brain is automatically terrifying, but the woodland critters get extra points for possessing satanic powers and holding blood orgies. Also, they're trying to ensure the birth of the Antichrist.

Nubbins (Sanctuary)
Cute? It's doubtful anyone would bother taking care of the troublesome little things if they didn't resemble fat chinchillas.
Terrifying? They're basically tribbles with teeth. They're cute and cuddly until they start breeding and eating. And when they get hungry, they can take down the most vicious predator.

Bunnicula
Cute? He's your standard bunny: long ears, fluffy tail.
Terrifying? Maybe if you're a vegetable. Or a conspiracy-theorist cat.

The Denizens of Halloweentown (The Nightmare Before Christmas)
Cute? There's a reason they've been lining the shelves at Hot Topic all these years.
Terrifying? The Oogie Boogie is especially nightmarish, but the rest of Halloweentown gives a good scare, even when they don't mean to.

Sully (Monsters, Inc.)
Cute? That one child calls Sully "Kitty" throughout the entire movie pretty much sums it up.
Terrifying? About as scary as a monster from Sesame Street. But he does make his living terrorizing children, so we'll give him a pass.

Bun-Bun (Sluggy Freelance)
Cute? Yes, even while wielding a knife.
Terrifying? With a violent temper and the ability to produce switchblades seemingly out of no where, Bun-Bun is a force to be reckoned with. He's been known to slay telemarketers, the Easter Bunny, and anyone else who gets on his nerves.

Ickis (Aaahh!!! Real Monsters)
Cute? Unfortunately for him, yes. The small children he's supposed to be scaring frequently mistake him for a bunny rabbit.
Terrifying? Not as much as he'd like, but he gives it a solid try.

The Gingerbread Men (The Tick)
Cute? And delicious.
Terrifying? They're thoroughly evil and pretty clever, but because they're made without preservatives, they tend to go stale after a while.

The Gingerdead Man
Cute? This one falls a bit more on the disturbing side.
Terrifying? A psychotic killer resurrected as a knife-wielding cookie and voiced by Gary Busey? Actually, yes, it's pretty terrifying.

Reynardine (Gunnerkrigg Court)
Cute? Sometimes. He's trapped in the body of a stuffed wolf.
Terrifying? He's a body-stealing demigod, although at the moment he's confined to a single body. Still, he can shift into a pretty intimidating wolf form.

The Rabbit of Caerbannog (Monty Python and the Holy Grail):
Cute? From a distance.
Terrifying? It's not just the fact that the rabbit can decapitate you with its teeth. It's the awful can opener noise it makes when it does it.

Evil Children Everywhere
Cute? Creepifying to be sure, but reasonably cute.
Terrifying? Absolutely. It doesn't matter if they're banishing you to the cornfield or sacrificing you to the Devil; evil children are always utterly terrifying.

And yes, we're only doing this list because Chip Overclock demanded it.

Evil overlords of braininess:

The Gamesters of Triskelion from Star Trek: I'm willing to bet dollars to quatloos that you've already appreciated this classic tale of gambling addicts who have itchy betting fingers despite not having fingers. If not, then this trailer is all you really need to know.

Mother Brain in Metroid In this NES classic, the boss of the game was giant, disembodied glob of grey matter surrounded by a futuristic security system. If feminist gaming pioneer Samus Aran ran out of missiles, there was no way to beat Mother Brain. The whole "running out of a common item at the final boss of the game" spiel was an infuriating conundrum typical of early Nintendo games.

Brain from Doom Patrol. This brilliant scientist was caught in an explosion which reduced him to a brain, and nothing else. Luckily, Monsieur Mallah, the gorilla he'd uplifted to genius intelligence, loved him and kept him alive inside a tank. Niles Caulder, the scientist who engineered the explosion, later transferred race-car driver Cliff Steele's brain into the robot body he'd built for Brain.

Disembodied brain develops psychic powers:

Donovan's Brain by Curt Siomak, and the 1953 movie of the same title, are about an evil millionaire whose brain is put in a vat, and then he develops mental powers, allowing him to control those around him. The movie co-starred Nancy Davis, the future Nancy Reagan.

The Brain Spawn in Futurama — they're evil overlords, but they also have telekinesis. They're not actually in jars, but they're definitely disembodied. And they try to conquer the Earth, until Fry stands up to their leader, Big Brain (sorry, foreigners):

The Outer Limits, "The Brain Of Colonel Barham" Mea culpa — I wrongly put this one into "robot bodies you can load your brain into" — but it fits way better here. Colonel Barham, an astronaut, volunteers to have his brain loaded into a robot body so he can go to Mars, but then he goes nuts and develops evil psychic powers and controls people with his mind:

Marvel What If, "What If The Fantastic Four Had Gained Different Powers?" In this "what if" tale, instead of getting stretchy-limb powers, the FF's Reed Richards becomes a super-smart disembodied brain, with mental powers. "I promise I will never dominate your brain again," he promises Ben Grimm.



The brain that cheated death:

They Saved Hitler's Brain! You only think Hitler died at the end of World War II — in fact (wait for it), they saved his brain!

Doctor Who, "The Brain Of Morbius" features an evil Time Lord named Morbius who wants to rule the universe — so the Time Lords, instead of giving him the kid-gloves treatment they give the Master, go ahead and execute him. But his followers save his brain and keep it in a vat. The brain is eventually transplanted into a weird hybrid body, with a bubble head:

"William And Mary" by Roald Dahl. William dies of cancer, but he has his brain preserved inside a machine that can keep him alive for 200 years. His wife, Mary, considers taking him home — but only so she can smoke in front of him and watch television, two things he hates seeing her do. This story was made into an episode of the Tales Of The Unexpected TV series.

Packaged for space travel:

The Mi-Go in Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos are fungoid, crustacean extraterrestrials, who transport humans from Earth to Pluto, by removing your brain and putting it in a "brain cylinder."

Operating cities or spaceships:

Spock's Brain from Star Trek is probably the most famous example of this trope — what is brain? Brain is the ultimate city infrastructure planner! (Sexy babes steal Spock's brain and use it to run their city. It makes total sense.)

The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey is all about a girl whose physically disabled so she's put in life support to help run complex systems, and when she hits adolescence, her brain is removed and she becomes the "mind" of a spaceship — until she falls in love. Aw.

Neon Genesis Evangelion's MAGI computer system is run by disembodied human brains.

Tin Man: In this Syfy reimagining of the Wizard Of Oz, the Wizard turns out to be the disembodied brain of the Scarecrow's counterpart, and it runs a doomsday device. (Thanks, TVTropes!)

RoboCop 2: The second RoboCop is really just the brain of a psychopath, transplanted into a robot body. Which works out great!

Krang from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sort of fits this one as well — he gets reduced to just a brain-like entity, and then his ally Shredder builds him a humanoid exo-suit, with his disembodied brain-creature in the tummy. Mmmm tummy brain...

"Becalmed In Hell" by Larry Niven. In this story in the "Known Space" series, the injured Eric's brain is used as the computer of a ship exploring Venus, using the empty fuel tank as a dirigible. When it's time to return to Earth, Eric announces there's a problem, and they have to land. But the "normal" human astronaut, Howie, decides the problem is actually with Eric himself.

Random weird disembodied brain:

The Man With Two Brains features brain surgeon Steve Martin falling in love with a woman's disembodied brain, as he searches for a gorgeous body to transplant her into. As Martin helpfully explains, "I can't fuck a gorilla!"

L'oncle Irvin ("Uncle Irvin") in City of Lost Children featured a talking brain in a tank named . He suffered from migraine headaches, and spouted pearls of wisdom throughout the film.

The Harlem Heroes in 2000 A.D. are a basketball team one of whose members gets destroyed, except for his brain, which is — you guessed it — in a jar. And he still gets to stay on the team.

The Curious Dr. Humpp is a random disembodied genius brain, who can only survive as long as his acolyte siphons off the sexual energy from hot young men and women, and beams these orgones into his cerebellum. We featured a clip here.

Mother Brain in Captain N: The Game Master This Saturday morning cartoon show. She was voiced by Levi Stubbs, better known as the voice of Audrey the carnivorous plant from Little Shop of Horrors.

Star Wars features the B'omarr monks, whose brains live in jars, but sometimes spider droids carry them around, and you can just glimpse them in Jabba's palace if you squint like a Hutt.

Ghost In The Shell features many characters who've kept their organic brains but scrapped everything else. And according to TVTropes, this is a common motif in Dragonball, Kara No Kyoukai, Appleseed, Captain Future and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagan as well.

Additional reporting by Cyriaque Lamar.

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.

Space Ghost
Twenty-eight years before he became a talk show host, Space Ghost hit the airwaves with a wonderful design (from comic book legend Alex Toth) and... well, not much else to his credit, really. Fighting generic alien villains (Most of whom would go on to become the crew of Space Ghost Coast-to-Coast) in equally generic cartoons, Adult Swim's 1994 parody revamp may end up being the best thing that ever happened to him... It was definitely the most interesting.

Birdman
Another character rescued from obscurity by Adult Swim (And, again, Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law is probably the best thing that happened to the character), Birdman shares lots of other things with Space Ghost - He comes from the same time period, was also designed by Alex Toth, and had a short career, only lasting two years before cancellation. Still, at least Birdman - whose Egyptian connection would later be co-opted by his inspiration, DC's Hawkman - only had one annoying sidekick, the on-the-nose named Birdboy.

The Herculoids
A Space Ghost spin-off, The Herculoids were an alien superteam made up of a dragon, a "rock ape," a rhino with ten legs, two giant amoebas and some humans. According to the opening credits, they were all-strong, all-brave and all-heroes, but I'd rather go with "all-awkward, all-half-a-good-idea and all-canceled-in-two-years." Gleep and Gloop, we hardly knew you.

Galaxy Trio
Weirdly enough my favorite of all of these characters (There's just something about this mash-up of Legion of Super-Heroes and Fantastic Four that gets me, I can't deny it), this trilogy of uninventive characters - Vapor Man, Gravity Girl and Meteor Man who, despite his name, can grow or shrink any part of his body at will. Get all your innuendo out now, people - managed to last two years fighting crime as part of the Galactic Patrol interstellar police force. Okay, I admit it; I would totally watch a Galaxy Trio Vs. Space Ghost crime-off.

Mightor
Another product of the 1967 rush of mediocre cartoons - With the exception of Space Ghost (1966), all of the above shows were produced by Hanna Barbera during the same time, which says a lot about the faith they had in that Batman fad lasting - Mightor was proof that superheroics and prehistorics shouldn't mix. When teenage caveman Tor raises his magic club in the air, he becomes the mighty Mightor, who looks very like Space Ghost, fighting... well, dinosaurs and whatever random crime happened back in caveman days. You can guess why this one didn't really have the legs to last beyond a couple of years.

Space Angel
Of all the shows deserving resurrection, Space Angel is the best. Firstly, the name - which also happens to be the nickname of its lead character, Scott McCloud (No, not the guy who wrote Understanding Comics), an astronaut who works for the Earth Bureau of Investigation's Interplanetary Space Force alongside the just-as-wonderfully-named Crystal Mace and Taurus. Fighting off threats to Earth alongside his counterparts from Mars, Venus and other local planets, Space Angel's daily five-minute adventures made up in thrills what they lacked in animation (They look like motion comics). Someone get George Clooney on the phone: We've found his Iron Man.

Super Chicken
From the same people who brought you Rocky and Bullwinkle, Chicken gave the world the world's first Bostonian chicken, and for that alone it should be considered a national treasure. Which, considering the actual quality of the show, is probably a good thing.

Roger Ramjet
For some reason, my childhood was plagued by Roger Ramjet reruns, so you'll never be able to convince me that this square-jawed dull-witted patriot is anything other than "that crappily-animated cartoon that's keeping me from new episodes of Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends." Sorry, everyone.

The Mighty Heroes
Early work by Ralph Bakshi, Heroes was the result of an improvised pitch surprisingly greenlit, and the lack of planning shows up in characters like Diaper Man (He's a supersmart baby!) and Rope Man (He's a man made out of rope!). Mighty Mouse, who shared a show with these losers, must've been ashamed.

The Impossibles
What happens when you cross Beatlemania with Batmania? You get 1966's The Impossibles, in which three rock'n'roll stars put down their guitars and take up crimefighting when the need strikes - and mysterious boss Big D calls. As a reminder of the crazy zeitgeist of the era, it's fine, but as anything else...? I'm not convinced.

Oh, and there will be some spoilers for recent TV episodes here — most notably Fringe.

This is mostly a list of people whose characters died or departed forever, but then they went on to play a totally different character. This doesn't include people whose characters died and then came back to life, which is a totally different trope. (And I'm not including actors who played more than one minor character in a show, or a minor character followed later by a major character.)

Garret Dillahunt on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

This amazingly versatile actor plays Cromartie, a Terminator sent from the future to kill John Connor. And after a season and a half of cat and mouse games, Cromartie finally gets blowed up good. But then his body gets repurposed and used as a UI for the childlike AI known as John Henry. (You could also say the same for Brian Austin Green, but that's slightly different — he came back as the exact same character, Derek Reese. It was just a different timeline where Derek hadn't died (yet.))

Sheryl Lee on Twin Peaks.

Laura Palmer dies (as you may have heard), but then actor Sheryl Lee shows up as Laura's nearly identical cousin Maddy. Good thing they wouldn't kill off the same actor twice... right?

Ali Larter on Heroes.

Larter plays the troubled webcam girl Niki, who's also the psychotic killer Jessica sometimes. But then Niki/Jessica dies... but it turns out Larter has an identical sister named Tracy. (And another one named Barbara, but apparently we'll never actually meet her.) And there's a mad scientist guy involved, who decided to give one sister weird water powers, and the other sister weird "psycho mirror" powers, because hello, mad scientist!

Doctor Carson Beckett on Stargate Atlantis

This jolly Scottish doctor is great at cooking up retroviruses and coming up with last-minute saves... but after he died at the end of the third season, fans were outraged. Good thing he was able to come back as his own clone. Also notable: Elizabeth Weir dies, but comes back as a machine intelligence (although I'm not sure if Torri Higginson ever played the mecha-Weir.)

Kirk Acevedo on Fringe .

This is the somewhat spoilery one: Acevedo's character, Charlie, dies at the end of the first episode of season two. But he's been replaced by an evil (or at least morally suspect) shapeshifter from an alternate world — where, presumably, there may also be another Charlie Francis running around. So we could eventually see Acevedo playing a third character. (And then a fourth, when the shapeshifter impersonates alt-Charlie?)

Amy Acker on Angel.

We were heartbroken when Fred died, but then chilled and shocked when she was reborn as the psychotic demon god Illyria. And then we learned to love her new persona almost (well maybe half) as much as her original one.

Terry O'Quinn on Lost.

Locke appears — emphasis on appears — to be stone dead, although maybe he's alive in another timeline? In any case, after Locke died, someone (or some thing) impersonated him, allowing O'Quinn to stretch his acting muscles and play Locke as, well, kind of a dick.

Denise Crosby on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Oh. The pain. Tasha Yar dies, but then Crosby later reappears as Tasha Yar's daughter (from an alternate timeline) with a Romulan. You see, Picard sent alt-Tasha back in time to the Enterprise-C so it could be destroyed by Romulans and the timeline could be repaired, but alt-Tasha didn't die, and so she shacked up with the Romulans, and... oh, whatever. It's Crosby with pointy ears. Look!

Steve Bacic on Andromeda.

He plays Gaheris Rhade, who betrays Dylan Hunt and is killed in the show's pilot episode — although Gaheris reappears several times in flashbacks and one alternate history episode later. And then in later seasons, Bacic takes on a new character Telemachus Rhade, who's the descendant of Gaheris. (Thanks to Xicer for the heads up!)

Lalla Ward on Doctor Who.

Okay, so Ward's character, Princess Astra, didn't actually die — but she did get written out of the show forever. And then the Doctor's Time Lady companion, Romana suddenly decided to regenerate, and randomly chose to refashion herself into the guise of Princess Astra. You could also mention Anthony Ainley, who played Tremas in "Keeper Of Traken." Tremas died — but then his body got taken over, and he became the new incarnation of the Master — but Tremas was always just intended to be a new host body for the Master.

Katee Sackhoff on Battlestar Galactica.

This is another edge case — Starbuck definitely died, because there was a body. But did she come back to life? Is Sackhoff playing a different character in the final season of BSG? Your theory is at least as valid as mine, because I haven't a clue. Like the video says, "You Will Know The Truth."

Thanks to Alexis Brown, Meredith Woerner, Sam J. Miller, Paul McEnery, Sean Passmore, Katrina James, Rus McLaughlin, Kathleen Warnock, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, S.J. Edewards, David Daw, Debcha, Barclay Sylvester, Karen Meisner, Brooklyn Erica, and "Dillahunt News" on Twitter (is that actually Garret Dillahunt, or a fan?), plus anyone else who helped out.

If You See the Future, You Can Change It

Flashforward by Robert J. Sawyer: In the source material for the television series, the consciousness of the human population is flung 21 years into the future for two minutes. Although some who see the vision are resigned to their eventual fates or actively seek them out, there are those who quickly prove that the future isn't set in stone — by killing themselves so their visions cannot come to pass.

Next: Nic Cage plays a fellow who can see two minutes into the future. It's helpful for winning blackjack, but he otherwise finds that by observing his own future, he changes what his future will be.

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer: Alice Cullen has a limited ability to see into the future, but her vision of the future depends entirely on the decisions humans and vampires have made in the here and now. If a person changes his/her mind at the last moment, the future will be very different from what Alice has perceived.

The Power of Five by Anthony Horowitz: Matt Freeman accurately predicted his parents' death, but did nothing to prevent it. Later, Matt learned that his dreams are, in fact, precognitive, and that seeing the future allows him to change it.

Star Wars: A handful of Force users, notably those related to Anakin Skywalker, have Force Visions of possible futures. While the Sith tend to see the visions as true or try to make them come to pass, the Jedi tend to view the future as ever-shifting. Of course, Anakin Skywalker was prodded down his path to the Dark Side because he was trying to avert the future he saw, only to end up helping it along.

Marvel Comics: Several characters in the Marvel Universe have the ability to see into the future, but there are plenty of indications that those visions aren't set in stone. Irene Adler, also known as Destiny, has the ability to see probable futures and determine which events and choices would lead to which future. Similarly, Layla Miller has the ability to see paths of causality and understands how to change or avoid future events. And though Tick-Tock sees a mere 60 seconds into the future, he sees diverging paths as well and knows which ultra-near future is most likely to occur.

No Heroics: Timebomb can also see 60 seconds into the future, and can make small changes based on his predictions. But burned out from the superhero life, he mostly uses it to predict whether pick-up lines will succeed, or whether the train will come.

You Can Change the Future, But Only to a Certain Extent

Lost: Desmond Hume sees visions of the future, notably of Charlie's death, and can avert specific instances he foresees. But he eventually realizes that Charlie's death is inevitable, and that he can only hold it off for so long. Other castaways have similar visions of the future, but are unable to prevent those visions from coming to pass.

Supernatural: Sam Winchester has visions of the future that sometimes allow Sam and his brother Dean to avert catastrophes. However, Sam's powers are a far cry from the divine prophecy exhibited by Chuck, whose visions of the future always come true.

You Can't Change Anything

The Dead Zone: Johnny Smith's visions of the past and near future are always accurate, and he uses his precognitive and postcognitive abilities to solve crime. His accuracy becomes distressing, however, as he captures glimpses of an apocalyptic future tied to the congressional election of Greg Stillson.

Premonition: When Sandra Bullock experiences the day after her husband's accident before the accident ever occurs, she thinks she has been given the opportunity to save him. But it's her attempts to avert his deadly accident that end up causing his death.

Your VIsions May Come True, But Are Still a Warning

Angel: Doyle (and later Cordelia) receives visions of people in trouble. Said people always end up in trouble, but the purpose of the visions is to give Angel time to save the victim — or the world.

Charmed: Phoebe Halliwell is another recipient of warning visions from the powers of good, visions that let Phoebe and her sisters take down demons and evil warlocks.

Eastwick: We don't yet know the full extent of Roxanne Torcoletti's precognitive powers, but in the pilot she's able to see the beginning of her daughter's assault, allowing her to nip it in the bud.

The Matrix Reloaded: Throughout the second Matrix film, Neo is plagued by visions of his beloved Trinity dying. She is shot and falls, just as it happens in his dreams, but he is able to make the choice to save her after the fact, digging the bullet out and bringing her back to life.

Your Vision Will Come True, Just Not in the Way You Thought

That's So Raven: Raven Baxter's brief flashes on the future always come true, but she generally misinterprets their meaning. Plus, she'll often spend half the episode trying to keep her vision from coming to pass, even though her actions inevitably lead up to the scene from her vision. After 100 episodes, she still hasn't learned.

Minority Report: Presumably, the visions of the precogs aren't 100 percent accurate, since the three occasionally occasionally disagree on how and whether a crime will be committed. But on top of that, they can only see the literal visual of the crime and not the circumstances, and the precrime unit may, at times, misinterpret the visions.

Battlestar Galactica: Caprica Six, Sharon Agathon, and Laura Roslin share a dream-like premonition. Although it's not a literal vision of the future, at least Sharon fears it signifies a future in which Baltar and Caprica kidnap Hera, although in the end, they merely rescue the child from Cavil and his forces.

Blake's 7: The Orac supercomputer is capable of many astounding feats of computation, and when it falls into the hands of the Liberator crew, it claims it can predict the future. To prove it, Orac shows them a video of the Liberator exploding. But it then proceeds to manipulate events so that a ship identical to the Liberator explodes, thus fulfilling its own prophecy.

Heroes: Although time travel has changed more than a few future events, premonitions hold quite a bit of predictive water. But even as most of Isaac Mendez's paintings come true, they don't occur in the way the viewer might expect, and Angela Petrelli's prediction that Matt Parkman would save Nathan's life has a horrifically twisted outcome.

Shazam! (1974)
With one word, Billy Batson becomes the World's Mightiest Mortal... but that's about the most believable thing in this series, which creepily featured the underage Billy traveling around the country in an RV accompanied by his "mentor" and occasionally talking to the gods who gave him his powers, who all happened to be badly-animated cartoons. Add in Billy or Captain Marvel helpfully telling you the moral of the episode at the end each week, and you've got a recipe for a dull show enlivened only by the size of Billy's hair.

Electra-Woman and Dyna-Girl (1976)
I'm not really sure this one needs any explanation as to why it's on the list, once you've watched the video.

The Amazing Spider-Man (1977)
In which television revealed the truth about Marvel's favorite superhero: He looked kind of ridiculous. This short-lived series also missed the point of the comic book altogether by not using any of the character's famous supervillains, instead giving him ninjas and terrorists to fight. What was the point of that?

Legends Of The Superheroes (1978)
No expense was spared on bringing DC's biggest name superheroes to the small screen in this live action version of Super Friends - well, unless you count the money that would've been spent on a good script. Again, proving that bad writing and poor special effects can overcome even the best intentions, this two-part series (The second episode of which was a celebrity roast of the heroes led by Ed McMahon. No, really) also featured a villain more diabolical than Lex Luthor: A laugh track.

Those Terrible Captain America TV Movies (1979)
We can just imagine the pitch meeting for these two TV movies: "So, we have the rights to Captain America - You know, the guy who embodies the American Dream and fought in World War II against Hitler? I've got a great take on him: We turn him into Evel Kinivel. And let's get rid of that mask, too. Make it into a motorcycle helmet - That's much more hep." It could've been worse, we guess... We're just not sure how.

The Incredible Hulk Returns (1988)
The original Hulk series was, if you ask us, one of the few superhero shows that worked - and that's because they didn't really treat it as a superhero show at all. When they revived the series a decade later and started pairing him with guest stars from the Marvel Universe, though...? Not a good idea:

(The Daredevil appearance in the next special, Trial of The Incredible Hulk, may be even worse; especially because they seem to have gotten the character mixed up with a generic ninja who happened to be blind.)

Superboy (1988)
An attempt to spin the Superman movies into a weekly format, the Superboy series had sincerity going for it - Sincerity and the seeming inability to not try and drastically rework the series between seasons every year (Including recasting the lead role after the original Superboy asked for a raise around the same time as getting arrested for drunk driving), leading to a schizophrenic, uneven show let down by shoddy special effects.

The Flash (1990)
The Flash comic book may be populated with colorful villains, but the television show didn't have the same luck (Mark Hamill's Trickster, in the clip below, aside), presumably for budgetary reasons. Add in a leading man as stiff as his ridiculously over-sculpted costume, and it's no surprise that this show only lasted one season.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (1993)
Secret identities, colorful outfits, super powers, fighting crime... These guys count as superheroes, right? Maybe it's our age, maybe our dedication to things like plot, dialogue and nuance, or perhaps it's just our aversion to cheap monsters in anything that doesn't actually involve Godzilla, but the long-running (and multiple-show-spanning: It's on its fifteenth different title right now) series always seemed... well, almost unwatchably bad to us.

Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1993)
It's a judgment call as to whether this show really deserves to be here. On the one hand, the Moonlighting-esque relationship between its leads was cute, and John Shea's Lex Luthor was a lot of fun... But on the other, it was a show that struggled to come up with good ideas each week and often failed, leading to an episode where Clark married a clone of Lois, who needed to eat frogs in order to survive. Or something. And what was with essentially writing Lex out after one season, anyway?

Generation X (1996)
A pilot adapting Marvel's X-Men spin-off, Generation X made it to air but never to full-series, meaning that the world was spared the low-budget high-concept struggle of teens having to live with their mutant abilities in a world that hated and feared them... because they couldn't act.

Justice League of America (1997)
Possibly the ultimate proof that TV and superheroes don't mix, this is another unsuccessful pilot that aired nonetheless, and features bad writing, bad acting, bad special effects, and some of the most literal - and most embarrassing - superhero costumes ever seen on screen. It's like a landmark of fail.

Mutant X (2001)
Marvel's short-lived television series about mutants that isn't related to the X-Men at all oh no please don't sue us Fox (They did, nonetheless) tried to swerve away from comparisons to the publisher's successful mutant franchise by underplaying everything to the point of boredom. Even Generation X would've been better than this.

Birds of Prey (2002)
It had so much potential - Batman and Catwoman's daughter teaming up with the former Batgirl to fight crime? Hello, high concept - but the execution let it down badly with shoddy writing, lack of direction and the mistaken idea that camp was better than character development. When something makes Smallville look subtle and nuanced, you know you're in trouble.

The Ones That Didn't Suck
Batman (1966)
Almost everything about it is wrong - The cheap jokes! The ill-fitting costumes! Replacing Julie Newmar with Eartha Kitt! - but it all works nonetheless; Batman's 1960s incarnation may not be the best translation from page to screen, but as a weird totem of the era, it remains a classic.

Wonder Woman (1975)
We love Wonder Woman as a character, and this show may be a lot to do with that. While the comic version was having identity issues at the time this series was being made, the TV show took her back to her heyday, added the "let me twirl into my costume" and fittingly made Lynda Carter the star she should've been all along.

The Incredible Hulk (1978)
As we said above, the Hulk show worked despite its title character - Riffing on The Fugitive with an occasional need for a giant silent strongman, the show offered a completely different take on the character from the comics, and one that was arguably better.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1996)
When it comes to television series about people with magical powers, we don't think we're alone in thinking that Joss Whedon did everything right. Mixing just the right amounts of humor and tragedy into the supernatural and superpowered stories, Buffy is everything that superhero shows like Smallville and Heroes should be trying to emulate... if only they could drag themselves away from the superficial special effects and overcooked dialogue.

The Obvious Exceptions
Anything animated
Yes, all of the above shows were live-action, and yes, we know that superhero cartoons have a long and proud history on television as well; we're partial to some Justice League Unlimited, especially if Darkseid is the bad guy. But as much as adding animated series in here may have ruined the grade curve, let's not forget things like this:

or this:

I think you know what I'm saying.

Futurama, "Parasites Lost"

Fry eats a dodgy egg-salad sandwich at a spaceship rest area, and the eggs hatch into tons of worms, who form a whole worm society inside Fry's bowels. So the Planet Express crew has to copy themselves into tiny little worm-sized robots, which they can control with their brains — so the robots can travel inside Fry's innards while the actual people (and robot, in Bender's case) controlling them remain safe and normal-sized.

Mobile Suit Gundam and Gundam Wing
The Wing Zero and Gundam Epyon suits included the ZERO (Zoning & Emotional Range Omitted) system, connecting to the pilot's brain via neural interface and giving the pilot real-time strategic data, and eliminating all pesky doubts. The system has one major flaw: the pilot tends to "hallucinate" the possible paths the suit can take, causing temporary insanity unless your mind is strong enough. Here's a battle between Gundam Wing Zero and Gundam Epyon.

Ghost In The Shell

Lots of people in this universe jack into android bodies and control them remotely — sending android "dolls" into danger while remaining safe. In this clip, Major Motoko Kusanagi controls two android bodies at once. Especially in "Solid State Society," she's frequently running two parallel processes, and manages to be in two places at once.

Cities In Flight by James Blish

Before humans can actually visit Jupiter in person, we send tele-operated robots with cool tentacles. Here's a relevant passage (thanks to Technovelgy):

For a wild instant he had thought there was a man on Jupiter already; but as he pulled up just above the platform's roof, he realized that the moving thing inside was - of course - a robot; a misshapen, many-tentacled thing about twice the size of a man. It was working busily with bottles and flasks, of which it seemed to have thousands on benches and shelves all around it The whole enclosure was a litter of what Helmuth took to be chemical apparatus, and off to one side was an object which might have been a microscope...

The robot looked up at him and gesticulated with two or three tentacles...

"This is Doc Barth. How do you like my laboratory?"

Bug Park by James P. Hogan

In this awesome novel, inventors Eric and Vanessa Heber develop a new kind of telepresence — direct neural coupling — which shuts down your usual senses and connects them to neural feedback from robots, known as Mecs. The novel explains:

Ohira, who had been watching phlegmatically, nodded his head at the figures in the chairs. "You see, it's the way I told you. No ordinary VR helmets here. This connects straight into your head."

"DNC: Direct Neural Coupling," Heber said to Michelle. "That's what makes Neurodyne different."

She nodded. "I have read a little about it."

"Would you like to try it?" Heber invited.

Michelle moved her gaze to the empty chairs but looked apprehensive. "I'm not sure. I wouldn't want to get one of your little guys shredded or caught up in a wringer."

So of course the Hebers, and their precocious teen son, come up with the ultimate business model — tiny little bug robots controlled by tourists' minds, which can explore an insect theme park or even take part in insect gladitorial contests. But of course, bad guys want to use the DNC technology to power miniature assassins instead.

Robot in Invincible

The leader of the Teen Team superhero group, Robot gets promoted to join the Guardians Of The Globe, who are like the Justice League in the Invincible universe. Everybody thinks he's just a regular robot, but eventually they discover he's actually remote controlled by Rudy Conners, a disfigured man living in a tank of fluid.

Battle Angel Alita

Soon to be a movie from James "Avatar" Cameron, this series follows a cyborg assassin who's controlled several different bodies, including a Berzerker body, a "motorball body" and a TUNED body. (Thanks to Cash907Censored!)

The Girl Who Was Plugged In by James Tiptree, Jr.

In a corporate-controlled future, advertising is illegal, so instead celebrities go around promoting products. This story's protgagonist has her personality put into a perfect robot body, while her real body is put "in the sauna room" and she becomes an advertising celebrity. Her new body is a "placental decanter," specially grown to be perfect, with control implants. "Little Delphi is going to live a wonderful, exciting life. She's going to be a girl people watch. And she's going to be using fine products people will be glad to know about and helping the people who make them."

Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman

The soldiers in this book are jacked into Soldierboys, Flyboys and other constructs, which they control with their brains. These machines allow the U.S. to run a remote-controlled war against various third-world countries. Protgaonist Julian Class controls his robot Soldierboy via a jack connected to his skull. Too bad that long-term connection to the Soldierboys and Flyboys has weird long-term effects, including "humanizing" you and making you averse to killing.

Sleep Dealer

Two different characters jack their nervous systems into robots, far away, in this incredible movie directed by Alex Rivera. Memo goes to work in the city in Mexico, where he's connected remotely to robots doing construction work in the United States — so the U.S. can import people's labor, without bringing in the people themselves. And Rudy controls a military drone with his mind — using it, among other things, to blow up Memo's family's house when Memo accidentally gets suspected of being a hacker.

Runners up: Suspended (InfoCom game), Debatable Space by Philip Palmer, City by Clifford Simak, Starstruck (comics), Neon Genesis Evangelion, Metal Gear Solid 4 and Call Me Joe by Poul Anderson

Thanks to Arthur Conan Smith, Kiala Kazebee, S.J. Edeards, Katrina James, Andrew Liptak, Greta Christina, Kate Dominic, Jessy Randall Carlos P. Diaz, FLIMGeeks, Espana Sheriff, Tom Marcinko, Barry Lukens, Lun Esex, Ashley Edward Miller, Allan Bostick, Jackie M, Star Killer, Jason Schachat, Bonnie Burton, Morgan Johnson, Paul McEnery, Izzy Oneiric, Jason Shankel and Kate Cowan.

Replicators (Star Trek): Despite their ability to replicate everything from heavy machinery to caviar, the replicators actually malfunction far less often than their holodeck cousins. But leave it to the Cardassians to recognize replicators can be programmed for evil, whether by transmitting an aphasia virus or delivering a bomb in lieu of Captain Sisko's morning Raktajino.

Wonka's Inventions (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl): As much as Wonka claims that everything in his factory is edible, it's best to keep your mitts (and teeth) off his more experimental works, such as Three-Course Bubblegum or Television Chocolate.

Nuka-Cola (Fallout): Unlike Slurm, which is less an invention than the product of a Slurm Queen's behind, Nuka-Cola has multiple ingredients — some of them radioactive. While marketing claims the radiation in Nuka-Cola Quantum is harmless, no drink that makes your pee glow can be healthy, and even consuming Nuka-Cola Classic comes with a 10% chance of addiction.

Allied Mastercomputer ("I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" by Harlan Ellison): When the godlike computer AM destroys nearly all of humanity, it decides to keep a few around for its own amusement. To keep the survivors from dying, it manufactures manna from heaven. To keep them from enjoying it, the computer makes it all taste terrible.

Coffee Engine (Girl Genius): The Coffee Engine could give your favorite barista a run for their money. It's capable of creating the perfect cup of coffee, which would be great if any person who drank said cup didn't become instantly obsessed with its perfection. To keep all of humanity from degrading into coffee-addled zombies (as if it weren't already too late), the machine had to be tweaked to produce only an excellent cup of coffee.

Matrix Food (The Matrix): Virtual food in the Matrix isn't inherently evil, aside from it being another way the machines trick your brain into believing you're in the physical world. But when compared with the uniform slop served outside the Matrix, the promise of nightly steak dinners is enough to convince Cypher to betray Neo.

Soylent Processing (Soylent Green): The problem with over-processed foodstuffs is that no one recognizes what they're eating any more. That isn't such a huge problem when it's just (tasteless) soy and lentil wafers, but far more sinister when your latest ingredient is tasty, human meat.

Dehydrated Pizza (Back to the Future, Part II): The height of 21st Century convenience, the dehydrated pizza stores easily and cooks in a few seconds. But even though it's the shape of a cookie when dehydrated, don't devour the thing whole. Reexpansion in the stomach can be hazardous to your health, not to mention painful.

Bologna Virus (Invader Zim): When Dib hits Zim with a slice of bologna, Zim has a lunchmeat-inspired idea for taking out his nemesis once and for all. He overwrites Dib's DNA with bologna DNA, gradually turning him in to a delicious tube of pressed meat. Naturally, of course, the plan backfires and he's got to find...a cure.

Killer Tomatoes (Attack of the Killer Tomatoes): Professor Gangreen finds a way to turn Earth's most devious fruit into a weapon of mass destruction. In the second film, he transforms tomatoes into humanoid spies, even as giant man-eating tomatoes splat through the streets.

The Chocolate Dispenser (Red Dwarf): Unlike the Talkie Toaster, which is mostly annoying with its obsession with toast, the Chocolate Dispenser has declared itself Rimmer's actual nemesis, once going so far as to attack Rimmer by firing soda cans at his head.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Gun (Meet the Robinsons): Aspiring young inventor Lewis is always inventing things, and often showing his gadgets off to less that appreciative prospective parents. The PB&J gun would have been less of a disaster if that one potential father hadn't had a deathly peanut allergy.

Kandyman (Doctor Who "The Happiness Patrol"): Don't let his bridge mix exterior fool you; the Kandyman is not an automaton to be trifled with. People who fail to smile and aren't happy all the time must deal with the Kandyman's sweet brand of law enforcement — drowning in sugary goop, otherwise known as the "fondant surprise."

Dish of the Day (The Restaurant at the End of the World by Douglas Adams): At Milliways, you get to meet your meat before you eat, thanks to a brand of sentient animal specially bred to want to be eaten. Granted, it's probably not going to hurt you, but you'll probably lose your appetite.

1.) Club Hel

Location: The Matrix's Mega City
What kind of Crowd? Usually the tie-me-and-gag-me types like to hang out in this leather clad-paradise, but it usually seems to have a regular crowd of rogue programs masquerading as werewolves, vampires and other paranormal anomalies.
Why you should give it a shot: Most people might be thrown off by the number of vinyl cows killed to make the fetish gear, but if you were smart enough to take the red pill, this is old hat.

2.) Holoband Clubs

Location: Anywhere you want, as long as your live in Battlestar Galactica's 12 colonies.
What kind of Crowd? The holoband clubs located in the virtual realm of one's mind make Club Hel look like a neighborhood bar. Teens go inside these illegal clubs to indulge in their most deviant desires, which at the very least involve kinky sex and at the very most include human sacrifice.
Why you should give it a shot: Should you meet an unfortunate demise, this is the best place to hide a virtual replica of yourself.

3.) The Snake Pit

Location: Blade Runner's Los Angeles in the year 2019.
What kind of Crowd? The world's social elite all cooped up together, smoking opium.
Why you should give it a shot: You can have fun spotting the replicants posing as bar patrons. Why stay at home, when you can witness an existential struggle over what it means to be human take place in your neighborhood bar.

4.) The Genetic Opera

Location: Repo! The Genetic Opera's Central entertainment featuring the Blind Mag.
What kind of Crowd? If you think that Los Angeles has a bad reputation for fake people, you obviously haven't been to a city where augmenting your body is as simple as going in for a haircut.
Why you should give it a shot: It's an opera, which is hardly a bar, but when you're high on the painkiller that everybody's hooked on, Zydrate, you don't really need a Rum and Coke to tickle your fancy.

New York

Los Angeles

Chicago

Washington, DC

San Francisco

Tokyo

London

Paris

Additional Reporting by Caitlin Petrakovitz.

Gilded Cages

The Axiom (WALL*E): The luxury liner Axiom has taken humanity on a multi-generational space cruise so successful that humans have lost the drive to even contemplate leaving. But when the Axiom's marginally more self-aware captain gets it into his head that it's time to return to Earth, he learns that the ship's robots have standing orders to keep the population trapped on board — for their own good, of course.

The Community (The Giver by Lois Lowry): In the tightly regulated Community, everything is carefully structured and everyone is provided for. Most residents would never dream of leaving, but believe that if they break some of the Community's more serious rules, they'll be "released" and live outside the Community. As it turns out, however, "release" is less exile than execution.

Tally's City (The Uglies Series by Scott Westerfeld): The denizens of Tally Youngblood's post-scarcity community want for nothing. Food is plentiful, entertainment is readily available, and people are peaceful. And, once sixteen year-olds move from Uglyville to New Pretty Town, they get fresh, attractive faces and life becomes an endless series of parties. Of course, the price is a couple of intelligence-numbing lesions on your brain, and that any attempts to leave will be blocked by the fearsome Dr. Cable and her team of surgically-enhanced Specials.

The City of Domes (Logan's Run): After a population explosion resulted in disaster, it was decided that people within the City of Domes would live a life of pleasure until age 21 (or 30, depending on whether you're reading the book or watching the movie). You can try to escape before your fatal birthday, but then you have to deal with Sandmen, people employed to kill the people who run.

The Capital of Panem (The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins): In Panem, geography is destiny. Those born in the North American nation's twelve districts must endure the harsh conditions set by the Capital. But in the Capital, where citizens live lives of pleasure and ease, they're no more free. Escaping from the Capital means execution, or a life of servitude as a mute and mutilated Avox.

The Urban Monoliths (The World Inside by Robert Silverberg): The Urbmons are not actually a single city, but a series of enclosed, thousand-story buildings bursting with an ever-growing human population. People have no privacy and may never go outside, instead living hedonistic lives indoors ruled by rampant sex, prepackaged entertainment, and happiness-inducing drugs. Anyone who contemplates stepping outside the ant farm is termed a "flippo" and risks a trip down a shaft that leads into the power generator.

The Village (The Village): A less scifi example comes from M. Night Shyamalan's film about an isolated rural village. The village elders created what they believed to be a utopian society free from violence, and agreed to remain by compact, but force their children to stay inside the village limits with spooky stories of "Those We Don't Speak Of" and the occasional dose of animal mutilation.

Labor Camps

One State (We by Yevgeny Zamyatin): Perhaps the prototypical inescapable city, One State is made entirely of glass, a megacity where work and sex are under state control. When D-503 awakens to the oppression imposed by the Great Benefactor, he begins to dream of rebellion. But D-503 finds that even a mental escape from the city is temporary at best.

The Electronic Labyrinth (THX 1138): As in One State, the underground city of THX 1138, workers are completely controlled, albeit with drugs and mindless entertainment instead of indoctrination and sex. Most of the city's workers, even those in prison, can't even contemplate escape, but those that do have to face the city's police force.

City-Wide Prisons

The Village (The Prisoner): Men and women who know the secrets of the world are captured and sent to the surreal Village, a place that might be idyllic if you could ever leave it. Although there are no clear boundaries preventing escape, Rover, the Village's eerie white balloon, will be sure to nudge (or drag) an potential escapees home again.

Seahaven (The Truman Show): Only one person is actually a prisoner inside the domed town of Seahaven: Truman Burbank, unwitting star of The Truman Show. To ensure that he never leaves (or even realizes he's imprisoned in the first place), the show's creator has placed him on an invented island and saddled him with a traumatic fear of water.

The Strangers' City (Dark City): The Dark City is actually a strange urban petrie dish, a city created by the alien Strangers to stage their experiments. Most denizens don't even realize they're imprisoned by the aliens, since, along with the city, their memories are altered each day.

Vault 101 (Fallout 3): When a nuclear attack turns all of Washington, DC into a nuclear wasteland, life in a fallout shelter doesn't sound like a half-bad plan. But Vault 101 wasn't designed as a means for preserving humans to repopulate the Earth; it's rather an elaborate science experiment to test the results of indefinite isolation under an Overseer. Although no one (save the Overseer) is ever supposed to leave the Vault, a couple of folks do manage to get up to the wasted surface.

The Colony (The Island): Residents of the enclosed colony only believe that the Earth has been entirely devastated, leaving them in a comfortable facility and hoping for a ticket to "The Island," the last habitable place on Earth. But when Lincoln Six-Echo does a little sniffing around the facility, he discovers that they're not in a shelter but a prison, and that they're cloned humans made to provide spare parts to the wealthy and unscrupulous.

New York and Los Angeles (Escape from New York, Escape from LA): When crime and moral decay reach a critical mass, Manhattan — and then Los Angeles — are declared maximum-security prisons. Unlike many other urban prisons, New York and Los Angeles are fairly straight-forward, with high walls, moats, and guards keeping criminals inside.

Cities at the End of the World

Diaspar (The City and the Stars by Arthur C. Clarke): For the most part, the denizens of Diaspar feel no compulsion to ever leave their enclosed urban home. As far as they know, there are no other humans on Earth and humanity will encounter a dreaded foe if it ever again spreads into the stars. When Alvin, the first new soul born into Diaspar in seven thousand years, begins to inquire what's outside, the other residents won't even consider his questions, though he does eventually find a passage to a second civilization, and seeks to discover why the people of Diaspar are so afraid of venturing outside.

The Underground Cities (12 Monkeys): When a biological agent wipes out most of humanity, the survivors are forced underground. Until a cure can be found, there's no point in going outside unless you have a death wish. There is one way to enjoy fresh air, however: travel back in time before the virus was released.

Zion (The Matrix): In the realm of The Matrix series, humans are generally either plugged into the Matrix or living in Zion, the last human city. Ships do come and go from Zion to battle the machines or remove more humans from the Matrix, but even that must be done carefully to keep the machines from learning its location — although, in fact, the machines are already well aware of it.

Paradigm City (The Big O): After "The Event," residents of Paradigm City found themselves without memories and without a world outside their own city. Everything outside the city is a wasteland. Some folks claim to come from outside the city, but it's likely their origins are more sinister than that.

Ember (City of Ember): After an unnamed disaster, those living in the underground city of Ember believe they exist in the last inhabitable place on Earth, with no reason to leave as long as the city's generator keeps working and the lights stay on. But when the generator begins to fail, two of Ember's children must find a way to escape the city and spirit the entire community to safety.

There Be Zombies Outside

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (Land of the Dead): The survivors of the zombie apocalypse set up a haven for themselves in Pittsburgh, using the city's surrounding rivers and an electric fence to keep the undead outside. But even without the threat of a zombie attack, Pittsburgh has it share of problems, with an emerging feudal system causing tension among the living humans.

ARC Island (The Zombie Hunters): Jenny Romanchuk's zombie comic has its own haven in the form of ARC Island, which serves as a village for survivors and a research lab to find a cure. The only ones who venture into zombie-infested territory are the Zombie Hunters — still-living humans infected with a dormant form of the zombie virus.

Mary's Village (The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan): In The Forest of Hands and Teeth, the zombie apocalypse occurred so long ago that people living inside Mary's fenced-in village hardly remember technology or the ocean. The only thing that keeps them safe from the Unconsecrated undead is a chain-link fence, which none but the most desperately suicidal pass.

Raccoon City (Resident Evil): The problem with Raccoon City isn't so much the zombies outside; it's the zombies inside. When an experiment creates a zombie outbreak, the Umbrella Corporation places the entire city under quarantine, forcing anyone who wants out to battle both zombies and private military forces.

Other Cities:

Bregna (Aeon Flux): Much like the totalitarian labor camps and gilded cages is Bregna, one of two cities in the Aeon Flux universe. In order to preserve order and keep the Breen population separate from its anarchist Monican neighbors, Trevor Goodchild has erected a small, but heavily booby-trapped Berlin Wall.

Alixus' Colony (Deep Space Nine "Paradise"): Alixus is the leader of a small human colony stranded on an Earth-like planet. With all of technology on the planet suppressed, the colonists have been unable to summon rescue, but have happily adapted to a luddite existence. But when Sisko and O'Brien find themselves trapped on the planet, they learn that Alixus has deliberately suppressed the colony's technology and isolated the planet without her neighbors' knowledge or consent.

Kandor (Superman): Once the capital city of Krypton, Kandor was miniaturized and stolen by Braniac, who kept the entire city in a bottle, lit by an artificial red sun. Superman eventually recovered the city, and it sits in the Fortress of Solitude, with city life going on until the day Superman can restore it to its original size.

Jennifer Check (Jennifer's Body)
Nature of Her Hunger: Demonic Possession — the result of a "virgin" sacrifice gone wrong.
Preferred Food Group: Boys, although she might make an exception for Amanda Seyfried.

Cal Thompson's ex-girlfriends (Peeps by Scott Westerfeld)
Nature of Their Hunger: Parasitic Infection, passed along through sexual activity.
Preferred Food Group: Whatever crosses their paths.

Lyekka (Lexx)
Nature of Her Hunger: Innate. She may look humanoid, but she's really a carnivorous plant.
Preferred Food Group: Pretty much anything and everything (including whole crews and countries at once), though she keeps her gums off the Lexx crew, out of affection for Stan.

The (Mostly Female) Carnivorous Dinosaurs of Jurassic Park (Jurassic Park)
Nature of Their Hunger: Innate. If you're going to keep Raptors and Tyrannosauri around, you have to expect a few casualties.
Preferred Food Group: Meat in general.

Heidi Barrie and Rhonda Kelley (Buffy the Vampire Slayer "The Pack")
Nature of Their Hunger: Hyena Possession, though they weren't very nice to begin with.
Preferred Food Group: High school principals.

Jodi Melville (Smallville, "Craving")
Nature of Her Hunger: Meteor-rock radiation, combined with an intense desire to be thin.
Preferred Food Group: Anything with fat on it.

Bilquis, The Queen of Sheba (American Gods by Neil Gaiman)
Nature of Her Hunger: Sacrificial. She devours men during the sex act to maintain her fertility goddess power.
Preferred Food Group: Men, though her preferred orifice for intake is not her mouth.

Zenelle (Madman)
Nature of Her Hunger: Mantis-like. Females of her species devour their mates.
Preferred Food Group: Men she's bedded, with the exception of one of the Mutant Street Beatniks, with whom she's fallen in love.

The Women of Eureka (Eureka, "Maneater")
Nature of Their Hunger: Chemical. An ancient spore turns the dial up on Carter and Dr. Stone's pheromones, and if what happened to the wolf whose lady friend got a whiff of his pheromones is any indication, the women of Eureka literally want to eat them up.
Preferred Food Group: Carter and Stone, though they never actually manage to sink their teeth into them.

Paula Gray, Doris Kearns and the Other Women of Dudley, Arkansas (The X-Files "Our Town")
Nature of Their Hunger: Cannibalism in an attempt to gain immortality.
Preferred Food Group: Anyone not in the cannibalism club. But they don't screen for diseases, and a good bit of the town ends up with Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease.

Frau Totenkinder (Fables)
Nature of Her Hunger: Sacrificial. She eats children to increase her magical power.
Preferred Food Group: Children, including her own infants.

Jillian Boone (Fringe, "Midnight")
Nature of Her Hunger: Bacterial. She's been infected with a sort of vampiric syphilis as part of an elaborate blackmail ploy.
Preferred Food Group: Spinal Fluid

The Women of Moodley (Doghouse)
Nature of Their Hunger: Infection by an Airborne Toxin.
Preferred Food Group: Men.

Giganta (DC Comics)
Nature of Her Hunger: Murderous. When you're giant, it's a handy way to dispose of people.
Preferred Food Group: Ryan Choi, The Atom, though just she ends up puking him up later.

Maryann Forrester (True Blood)
Nature of Her Hunger: Epicurean. She happens to know the perfect recipe for human (and shifter) hearts (and makes Tara an unwitting accomplice to her cannibalism), though she also needs a humanoid sacrifice for her god.
Preferred Food Group: She has a particular affinity for supernatural beings, though nothing undead.

Janet Weiss and Columbia (The Rocky Horror Picture Show)
Nature of Their Hunger: Unwitting. When you're invited to a dinner party, you generally eat what's placed in front of you.
Preferred Food Group: Meat Loaf — as in the person, not the stuff that's baked with tomato sauce.

Lizzie (My Favorite Martian)
Nature of Her Hunger: Monstrous. Thanks to a gumball that transforms humanoids into other creatures, Lizzie (who is normally shaped like Darryl Hannah) turns into a carnivorous alien beast.
Preferred Food Group: Bad guys.

Giggerota the Wicked (Lexx)
Nature of Her Hunger: Epicurean — in her words, she "likes to eat."
Preferred Food Group: Pretty much anything, although she finds brains too salty.

Audrey II (Little Shop of Horrors)
Nature of Her Hunger: Innate. She's a mean, green mother from outer space.
Preferred Food Group: Anything human.

Helen Sherman (Torchwood, "Countrycide")
Nature of Her Hunger: Epicurean. She and the other villagers happen to enjoy human flesh.
Preferred Food Group: Travelers.

Miss French (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Teacher's Pet")
Nature of Her Hunger: Mantis-Like. Actually, she is a giant praying mantis.
Preferred Food Group: Male virgins, no matter how much they boast about their supposed "experience."

Every Female Zombie Ever
Nature of Their Hunger: Innate. Fish gotta swim, zombies gotta chomp.
Preferred Food Group: Any living human, but there's sometimes a special emphasis on brains.