The first issue of the series - Buck Rogers #0 - is actually a 25-cent preview of the series proper, allowing curious readers a cheap way of sampling what the future holds for the revived hero. Series writer Scott Beatty previewed the series, and the preview, to Newsarama.com:

Buck's not the same old laconic square jawed hero. He wants to see new places. He wants to experience all the universe has to offer. He's full of ideas and keeps a journal so that he doesn't forget anything important. In many ways, he's a stranger in a strange land in his own time, so sling-shooting him into the future isn't quite as bad for him as it would be for someone less inclined to see the potential in finding himself a half-millennium forward in time. Buck assumes that technology has caught up with his own fabulist ideas. That may not necessarily be the case... Earth hasn't exactly "evolved" in 500 years. There have been some technological upgrades, but the planet has been through some harsh times. Buck is an oddity because he's allegedly from the past. He's hard-pressed to prove that idea. But he arrives at a crucial point in time and makes some tough choices others are unwilling to make. And he deals with a problem that he may have inadvertently failed to prevent in the first place. If I say any more I risk spoiling the conceits of the opening arc...

While Beatty promises appearances from many familiar faces in the opening storyline - including Colonel Wilma Deering - he's got some bad news for those expecting the return of Twiki:

Biddi-biddi-biddi-no.

Buck Rogers #0 is released in May.

Back to the Future: Barrucci and Beatty on Buck Rogers [Newsarama.com]

The problem isn't that I have no faith in Frank Miller to be the man who updates Buck for a 21st century audience (Although, now that you come to mention it, I'm not sure that I do), but that I don't think that you can successfully update him. Even moreso than his brother in awesome/stupid name space herodom, Flash Gordon, everything special about Buck Rogers seems such a 20th century idea that I'm not sure what, beyond name recognition, would make people want to update the series as is.

To start with, there's his name: "Buck"? Who's seriously called Buck in this day and age? The era of heroes with ridiculous names has, much to my sadness, passed; now we prefer our heroes to have more realistic, common names like "Nathan Petrelli," "John Connor" or "Buffy Summers" (Okay, maybe that last one's a throwback). Gone are the days when Buck, Flash or even Adam Strange could wander around our subconsciousness without ridicule, or at least writers trying to explain away the name in an awkward and unconvincing manner.

And, if anything, the name of his love interest has dated so much more: "Wilma Deering" was something that sounded like the set-up for a punchline that never came even when I was seven years old, and I was a naive and easy to dupe seven year old. Would any actress really want to play a character with that name today? And if not, will we see some lame updated version take its place? "My name's Wilma - but you can call me Willow." Or maybe she'll be an alien: W'Ilma De'ering, perhaps?

(In general, many of the names from Buck Rogers have dated appallingly. Could anyone really get away with calling an alien race "Mongols" now, for example? Or a space pirate "Black Barney"? Even later additions to the series, like the 1980s TV show's C3-P0/R2-D2 hybrid "Twiki" sounds like it came from the end of a writer's coke binge at Studio 54. What is it about this particular character that brought out the worst in writers?)

More importantly, the idea of Buck waking up in the 25th century seems curiously quaint now. It seemed more of a milestone when he was created - It's 500 years away! Half a millennium! - and there's something just... well, less impressive for him to find himself "only" 400 years later, for some reason. You could, of course, keep the 500 year mark, but then he becomes "Buck Rogers In The 26th Century" which doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

And yet, I can't deny that there's something irresistible about the basic, original, Buck concept - which is why I'd like to see someone try to do something that didn't just reboot a franchise, but start from scratch altogether, with all new characters. Give someone who isn't stuck in the past (Hi, Frank) the basic pitch of "a fighter pilot falls into a coma and wakes up five hundred years later in a world at war with aliens" and let them go wild. No Wilma, no brainy scientist Dr. Huer and definitely no Twiki, but something new, a world that's as alien and unfamiliar to us as it is to not-Buck (Seriously, that name has to go. Even ironically).

There's so much potential in the idea at the root of Buck Rogers that's completely buried under all of the Buck that we know. It'd be nice if someone who's taking on one of the revamps could just throw away everything that doesn't work - up to and including the name of the title character - and make it shine for a new audience.

I totally want a cute robot that comes and picks up after me when I've crashed out drunk on the floor of my floating space-forest. Right after the scene of Bruce Dern collapsing, the robots take him to the surgery and give him really good drugs through a nose/mouth mask, while they patch him up. And they become his robo-poker buddies. So it's totally sad that one of the three robots gets whooshed out to space before Bruce gets around to naming them Huey, Dewey and Louie.

Silent Running was supposed to be sort of a follow-up to 2001: A Space Odyssey and shares the same slow contemplative pace and majestic visuals. (Its director, Douglas Trumbull, was special effects supervisor on 2001.)

But really, it's only remembered for Huey, Dewey and Louie now. There had been funny robots before Silent, like Robbie from Forbidden Planet, and vaguely cool robots, like Gort from The Day The Earth Stood Still. But nobody had the technology to make little robots, or even robots that didn't look like a guy in a suit. What was the miracle advancement that allowed Silent Running to solve this problem? Amputees. Four bilateral amputees took turns playing the four "sweet-tempered" robots. With Wall-E, Huey and Dewey's time has finally come.. which is sort of fitting, since Silent Running takes place in the distant year of 2008.

We're not sure why Wilma wouldn't give things a spin, maybe with Tiger Man who is watching impassively in the background. Guess he wasn't a slave to the rhythm. Twiki isn't above getting out there and trying something new, so why does she have to be such a stick in the mud? This would be her chance to show Ardala up in an cosmic battle of boogie.