For those who like your superheroes square-jawed and old-fashioned, the book of the week has to be DC's Flash: Rebirth, which brings Barry Allen - the character whose creation sparked the industry's "Silver Age" superhero boom - back on a regular basis, courtesy of Green Lantern's Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver. The preview pages released so far promise a fast-moving (fittingly, for the fastest man alive) old-school superhero book, and if Johns and Van Sciver can achieve half of what they managed for GL, it'll be a fun ride.

DC is also releasing the first issue of Seaguy: Slaves of Mickey Eye this week, Grant Morrison's latest deconstruction of modern culture through a superhero lens, which promises to be weird, wonderful and probably more than a little confusing for most folks, but that's okay; they could always look to DC's Wildstorm imprint, which has two videogame tie-ins coming out, Prototype and a special Resident Evil collection called Fire and Ice.

Marvel looks to the past this week with Wolverine Omnibus, a movie tie-in collecting some of the X-Man's greatest hits in advance of next month's movie. It's filled with all manner of guest-stars like the Punisher, Spider-Man, the Hulk and Captain America. Talking of the star-spangled Avenger, he's celebrating the 70th birthday of the publisher with the special Captain America Comics #1 70th Anniversary Special.

If your tastes run to the more comedic, then you might prefer the Marvel Assistant-Sized Spectacular, which shows what happens when editorial assistants get to run the show, and fans of European space war can comfort themselves with Universal War One: Revelations, a new series of the translated French space opera.

But that's not all; Dark Horse releases Who Wants To Be A Superhero: The Defuser, reminding us all about Stan Lee's terrible reality show for hopefully one final time.

And Boom! Studios make their bid for being publisher of the week for the second consecutive week with the first issue of Cars: The Rookie, a new mini-series based on the Pixar movie, and Irredeemable, a compelling new superhero series from Kingdom Come's Mark Waid that looks at what happens when the world's greatest superhero goes too far... Consider it the other end of the spectrum from Flash: Rebirth, but just as good.

Even if you find superheroes to be a blight on today's consumer society, the complete list of this week's new comic releases is sure to contain at least one thing that you'll want to pick up at your local comic store... which you can find by using the Comic Shop Locator Service, in case you've never been there before. But, still, go on: believe a man can fly.

Thirteen children cast in the reality program are competing to have their character made into a comic strip. Each one child is eliminated by being "powered down," but only after a panel of judges have ripped apart the child's superhero performance. Which is a great way to encourage imagination and creative thought - by telling children their ideas are crap. So far two children have broken down on camera when their characters were cut or "powered down."

Three child psychologists, quoted in the Daily Mail, took real issue with the show's rough treatment of the children.

The show's winner will travel to LA to meet Lee himself, who I can only assume will have to piece together the fragile shattered psyche of the poor child long enough to write a comic about his/her make-believe character.

I haven't seen the British version of this program, but I'm going to have some issues with judges who point at a child's homemade cape and tear it to shreds. A bit harsh, but not a surprising for Channel 4, who has previously been accused of "corporate child abuse." Sweep in and fix this Stan - we know you can.

The series in question is an adaptation of Perry Moore's award-winning 2007 young adult novel Hero, which tells the story of the world's first gay superhero dealing with his ex-superhero father, his sexuality, and a superhero serial killer. Moore, whose dayjob is being a movie producer, will work on the new series as a writer and executive producer, alongside Lee, whose production company Pow! Entertainment, is behind the show.

Moore and Lee announced their partnership at this year's San Diego Comic-Con, but at the time, many believed that Hero was aimed at the big screen. Showtime's involvement guarantees two things - Less censorship than any big budget superhero movie would've allowed for, and also the potential for a David Duchovny guest-shot when rating start to drop. We can't wait.

Showtime enlists gay superhero [Variety]

According to the Hollywood Reporter:

"Legion of 5" — owned jointly by Rainmaker, POW! and Brighton — is planned as a series of CG-animated films but with a cross-platform approach to include games, online and mobile releases. Merchandizing is part of the plan as well.

Details of the characters and story line are being kept under wraps.

That said, that kind of idea isn't worth millions of dollars, and that's the spend that Lee is looking at here:

Rainmaker CEO Warren Franklin reported that the partners are raising about $24 million to get things going. "We are hoping to develop a strong franchise with the characters," he said.

Stan Lee to launch new superhero franchise [Hollywood Reporter]