Stavros

I'd like to see your take on Countdown, JSA, Batman, Starman, Detective, Teen Titans and Gotham Central. All these books are either cancelled, have regular creative changes, need direction or are just in dire need of saving. Countdown in particular would be interesting. How and with whom would you solve the current arc? What steps would you take with next years weekly book and who would it focus on? I hope some of that is helpful. I didn't list some books like Green Arrow because quite frankly I'm perfectly happy with them as they are.

Boo no Mel! Mel should do his own following Sylvester Stallones example and call it "Mad Max Rockatansky".

You wouldn't think it was so great if they made love afterwards! Given thier relative power levels thats practically foreplay.

Also Deadpool + Fourth wall = awesome

I swear I'm not making this up- X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I'm not quite sure how the task of naming the Wolverine movie was made difficult. Its like they had a group of people in the room pitching names. "James Howett: The Etrue Hollywood story" "The Incredible Edible Wolverine" "McClaw & his friendly freaks" I mean what were they thinking? Duh, maybe they should call the fucking Wolverine Movie WOLVERINE. Its fine if you want to add something based in the comics like "The Dark Knight" or "The Incredible Hulk". I would have preferred if the Spider-man sequels had been "amazing" and "sensasional" rather than 2 or 3. The X-men films could have been "Uncanny", "Astonishing" and erm, "New". Uncomplicated monikers like that differentiate and add something. Wolverine hasn't been known for such extra titles and so he should just be WOLVERINE. Ant-Man should be The Irredeemable Ant-Man because it ID's the character for hardcore fans and it adds personality for the uninitiated. Its just not required first time out to add stuff for a lot of the other guys who arn't known for it.

But look at her. She is either high, or that is the worst panel in the history of ever. Yeah...come on Stavros! Quit being the voice of reason! Its fucking Countdown! What makes you think that either the art or characterisation is a priority? They just want to slap it together and throw it on the shelves. Its just the worst panel, thats all.

I think that Barbara was just playfully jesting that Lois couldn't use the party to write a big expose on Super Heroes (IE thier behaviour and ID's) and after Lois acknowlaged that she wouldn't do it even for a Pulitzer Barb offered to assist her later on if she was blind drunk and puking. Call me cynical...

Justice League is a *** show. Justice League Unlimited is *****. Justice League tends to suffer due to the two parter format I think, there's no room for short entertaining stories that are the forte of the DCU. Its only in Unlimited that some of the best DCU characters like Green Arrow, Black Canary, Huntress, the Question and others have time to shine. They are much more interesting than Hawkgirl or GL.

The fact they all wear skintight costumes and have incredible bodies is fan service. Black Canary's costume is fan service. You're going to complain about how women are depicted in comics when fishnet stockings are acceptable crimefighting attire? Really? As for the violence, these two spar together, they do hit each other. Canary slapping Ollie is practically foreplay for them, its nothing close to assault when you consider that she was trained by Shiva and can snap limbs in moments. Typically most people associate a woman slapping a man with revenge for and insult and a man slapping a woman with abuse. Women are typically physically weaker and thus the connotations are different and no amount of wishful thinking will change that. Ideally the roles would be equal but they arn't and thus this is a reflection of majority perception rather than idealised thinking. Did they need the slap? No, but it didn't hurt at all. Apart from all that you say that Ollie is some sort of enlightened modern social thinker, but the deal with him really is that he is a huge hypocrite. The socialist billionaire who respects all people equally whilst rackng up notches on his bedpost and cheating on his girl. He's not perfect.

I really liked this story as well, and I didn't have any of the problems that you did. Basically I think you expect too much equal treatment when it comes to gender roles. Dinah slapped Ollie yeah, but quite frankly she's been trained by Lady Shiva and a slap is much more in the area of a taunt than an actual assault, especially considering the very physical nature of thier relationship. Given that both these character are experiance hand to hand fighters that slap was really just a fairly equal response to Ollie's taunts. Would it have been different if Ollie had hit Dinah? Of course, but thats pretty much as it should be (men are rarely abused by thier spouses, wheras a woman being hit rightfully has more negative connotations) and besides, if there was a woman who could take a punch and laugh it off I'm pretty sure it would be Dinah. Again, the strip club just plays on traditional gender roles. The men are actually trying to get the strippers but Ollie refuses which is totally in character. Ollie had previously been unfaithful to Dinah several times but leading to their most recent relationship he secluded himself and didn't have sex for an entire year (a feat she declares "Herculean" when she finds out). Ollie is very ashamed of his past and really wouldn't look at another woman at this point. Dinah hasn't dedicated herself in the same way but she wasn't the one cheating and the likelyhood it that she will stay faithful. The issue of certain heroes being around strippers is really a non-issue. Hal wouldn't mind and he's setting the thing up, and I think he's see the comedy in watching Clark Kent respond to that scenario. The fact that women in comics have come along enough to actually surpass the men in terms of confidence in thier role relating to the other gender is good. Thirty years ago the hen night would have been a sowing circle in a comic book. My only problem with how this plays out is the confusing timeline. The current JLA storyline comes straight out of their wedding special and there appears to be no crossover whatsoever when it comes to the result of the Green Arrow/Black Canary wedding special, which I find insane. If anyone knows what the timeline is and can explain this to me please do.

Deadpool might work if they brought him in as a merc in Wolverine 2 and he really stood out as a whacky anti-hero. It would be especially fun to see him as a slightly amoral whackjob hired to take down Wolverine. I could see a Deadpool movie working that way but theres no way he could draw on his own. At least tying in his origin with Wolvie makes him memorable to moviegoers.

But, how can the prequel to The Scorpian King be about how he becomes the Scorpian King when the Scorpian King was about how he became the Scorpian King? Nil interest aside from Randy. I'm betting he can look pretty evil when he wants to.

Back in the day when I was a kid watchng Saturday morning cartoons I was only able to catch Batman: TAS inconsistantly as it was buried in larger variety shows and split apart so the advert break became a 15 minute gap. It wasn't until recently that I was able to really go through and appreciate and watch the whole show. The very first two episodes that I saw were "Moon of the Wolf" and "Fire from Olympus", and both of these are personal favorites of mine as a result. They exemplified a darker more adult kind of entertainment even if they were stuck in horrible larger shows filled with phone-in competitions and depressingly enthusiastic hosts. They also helped me to seperate Batman from the old 60's show which was all I knew at the time. Whilst in retrospect both a flawed by the standards of this show they were miles better than the majority of kids tv I was supposed I enjoy, really the first thing I'd seen aside from the X-men and Spider-man cartoons to really bring me into the world of comics, and the animation was on a much higher level here. I'll always appreciate Fire from Olympus as a solid stand alone episode. The two villains also both interested me being linked to mythology as they were. At the time I was greatly interested in the Iliad and Oddessy, as well as the Roman empire. Romulus as a wolf was obviously a link to the beginnings of ancient Rome and Zeus sees the pantheon of gods in everything around him. It was very refreshing to see that evil guys wre more than animal-themed thieves, technical wizards or masked pranksters, even a one time villian could be well defined and interesting rather than just a variation on a theme.

If they take it seriously, like Battlestar Galactica seriously then it could work. I don't want some watered down kids show.

A Batman Anime? If its close to the really dark stuff that should be awesome.

I love Brian Wood.

Please tell me the Ayatollah will be played by the Iron Shiek!

Sulu's hilarious. When he ran around the ship shirtless with a sword? Awesome. Simon Pegg as scotty? Lord I hope he's been working on the accent. Even so, thats awesome.

Animated sketch with Marvel Heroes Clerks- Heroes

These were my favorite books as a kid and the Voyage of the Dawn Treader might just be my favorite thanks to its Oddessy-like nature. Unfortunatly I hated the last Narnia film so I'm unsure about this.

The pressure is on, who can nab the best concept car from an advertising car company? We'll have to see. I think the project which has Hasselhoff (even if its just a cameo) will be the legit franchise in the eyes of fans.

30 days is awesome, I'd recommend that. The Longbow Hunters would be a close second since I'm a big fan of Green Arrow but I havn't read it.

Obviously the advertising worked then.

Great show, its been a long time since I indulged my inner Star Trek nerd, but a lot of the times you guys were trying think of answers to pointless trivia I pretty much knew it. It was a Nausicaan who stabbed Picard by the way. Personally The Inner Light is my no.1 episode. Really this should have had as much fallout for Picard as the best of both worlds but it only comes up again subtly when he plays his flute. I'm surprised that Darmok was rated so highly, I've never really though of it as anything more than just another episode. Of course some episode that are the sone that get you into the show can have special significance. I like the BTAS episode Moon of the wolf because it was the first one I saw as a kid.

It's truly outrageous is what it is. The music's contagious. Oh lord. I'm filled with joy at the notion of hearing a report on this. I'm not even certain that I've ever heard of it before and I'm a definite 80's child.