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Another wonky REBIRTH/SLIDERS REBORN similarity jumped out at me -- REBIRTH offers an explanation for why there's a redhaired Wally West and an African American Wally West and why both have the same name (they're distant cousins named after the same grandfather). This new REBORN installment will attempt an explanation for why Robert Floyd and Jerry O'Connell play characters with the same name despite not being the same guy.

On that note, I'm happy to report that I've just completed the first draft of this short script where Quinn and Mallory will, at long last, team up! Sure hope Jerry doesn't balk at sharing the center stage with Robert Floyd for a story (he said somewhat delusionally).

The one thing I'm struggling with -- it's a little confusing to identify who is who at times. Quinn is listed in the script as QUINN and Mallory as MALLORY. However, I wrote Quinn to always address Mallory as "Quinn." ("Quinn!?" "Quinn." "Quinn!" "Quinn." "Quinn?") It can become unclear. And I'm writing a version of Maggie who still calls Quinn by his last name.

I always thought Dean should have been split in half; one version stays with Ben and Lisa and the other one goes off with Dean. Like on FARSCAPE!

SPOILERS

I thought the finale was okay and they introduced a new situation for the next season. It felt a little (deliberately) anti-climactic, but that's okay. I enjoyed the ride. There were lots of nice, quiet character moments. I did think that Amara desperately needed more characterization in order to make her decision at the end more convincing, though.

Just an addendum -- I think comic writers from the 60s to 2000s didn't know what they could change and what they couldn't. They understood that when you write Superman, X-Men, Spider-Man, Batman, Green Lantern, etc., you are writing mythic characters, but what are the essential aspects of that myth that everyone associates with the character that a faithful film or TV adaptation would use? When these characters were created and when these characters were at the height of their publishing popularity, it was difficult to imagine them in any other medium -- or that adaptations would be the most visible, most prominent versions of these characters.

For example, the shift from Barry to Wally -- this was DC Comics growing its universe, meeting the passage of time, and telling the next chapter in the legacy of The Flash. The Flash had started out as Jay Garrick, who was popular for a time but faded away. Then the Flash was revised into a new character with the same name and a similar costume and powers, Barry Allen. There was also the sense that Barry's character was a bit played out and dull.

With Green Lantern, sales had fallen on the title dramatically and DC sought to create a controversial, attention-grabbing storyline, so they had Hal Jordan become an insane mass murdering villain who destroyed the GL Corps and replaced him with a new Green Lantern named Kyle Rayner. This was DC attempting to progress into the 90s and create a GL who reflected young adult culture of the era -- soap opera with a 20something GL hanging out at his coffee shop angsting over girls.

However, the end result was that these updated for the 90s/next gen characters were too complicated in origin and backstory to bring to TV and film. It became necessary to roll back these changes and make Barry the star once more. With The Flash, all the next gen characters were unfortunately deleted. With GREEN LANTERN, the GL Corps allowed for all the next gen characters to stick around as supporting cast and in spin-offs while the core GL title focused on Hal Jordan once again. These were two instances where the changes were meant to be permanent, but over the course of several decades, it became clear that they had to be undone.

Grant Morrison, a very popular and inventive writer, attempted to do next-gen changes to BATMAN and X-MEN. With BATMAN, he introduced Batman Incorporated and created a global army of Batman and gave Batman a homicidal 10-year-old son. This was the evolution of Batman's storytelling engine. Unfortunately, it was an evolution based specifically on this particular writer's quirks and obsessions and without him, Batman Inc. faded away -- although the 10-year-old son remained.

With X-MEN, he attempted to replace the X-Men as a metaphor for the civil rights movement with a metaphor for youth culture. He replaced all the costumes with black leather, he had the X-Men revealed to the public instead of being an underground operation. While he did a great job, other writers couldn't quite capture the same tone and after he left X-MEN, the titles returned to the old civil rights approach -- although the X-Men remained publicly known and Cyclops and Emma Frost remained a couple with Jean Grey killed off and kept dead (but time travel brought a young version of her to the present day). In terms of evolving BATMAN and X-MEN to the next chapter, the changes were largely rolled back anyway for the next writer to come in with the default status.

It's only over decades that the essentials -- the defaults, the aspects the public associates with the character -- become clear. Superman will always be a reporter at the Daily Planet and his being a TV newsanchor was eventually undone. The Flash is Barry Allen, Green Lantern is Hal Jordan, the X-Men protect a world that hates and fears them, Batman fights crime in Gotham and not globally and Captain America fights Nazis. The writers can't be blamed for not being psychic or not realizing until the last decade that any changes to those essentials are only temporary. These temporary changes are generally to reinforce that those are the essential elements, sometimes through their absence.

So, right now, the style seems to be to execute GL/FLASH type changes by killing off Captain America and replacing him with Bucky or having Cap go evil, much like the Flash and Green Lantern -- but with the knowledge that this will be undone and to plan for that well in advance and making sure there's a decent story to be found there.

Well. Comics aren't really subject to conventional narrative or marketing rules for a variety of reasons. Crazy stuff like this is often necessary to keep the characters in the public view, even within the confines of publishing. When Captain America, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Superman, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four and Batman were created, their creators had no idea that they were starting a decade-spanning, serially ongoing, continuity based narrative with a floating timeline and a shared universe.

Eventually, the creators had to choose what they could change and what had to stay the same as they couldn't keep writing 60s era stories when in the 70s and 80s. Sometimes, the choices were effective. Sometimes they were a mistake. Sometimes, creators and companies stuck to their guns and carried forward, other times, they decided to use the flexibility of the medium to roll things backwards.

Spider-Man, for example, graduated from high school and went to university. With the X-Men, sales were low and Marvel cancelled the book, later reviving it with a largely overhauled cast that proved to be more popular than the first generation. Things changed for both Spidey and the X-Men: Peter Parker married Mary Jane and she got pregnant. With the X-Men, Jean Grey died, Magneto became a hero, Cyclops got married and retired, Professor Xavier left the X-Men in the hands of Magneto while he went off to space. Barry Allen died and Wally West replaced him. The feeling was that these characters would only ever exist in comic books, so comics were free to evolve and change and rework constantly, often making what would theoretically be irreversible changes.

In the 90s, however, Marvel started selling their TV and movie rights and suddenly, there became an urgent need to start rolling back all the changes; to make the comics reflect the default version that a TV show, cartoon or film would use. For the X-Men, all the changes were undone. Magneto reverted to villainy, Jean Grey was resurrected, Cyclops' wife was revealed to be some sort of demon queen and the clock rewound. The fact that previous comics had shown the X-Men to have outgrown this 'classic' situation was discounted.

With Spider-Man, Marvel attempted to retire Peter Parker and bring in a new Spider-Man, a clone named Ben Reilly. The sales crash made it clear that fans' loyalty was not to the costume and the name, but to the specific character, and Peter was reinstated with a time travel plot later undoing his marriage to Mary Jane.

With Wally West, DC saw which way the wind was blowing and decided to make their FLASH comics reflect any future TV show rather than see a TV show force their hand. When Wally became the Flash, the creators had no way of knowing that TV adaptations would be made, that superheroes could become filmable, that their third gen Flash would have a story too complicated to render onscreen.

All this experimentation, some incompetent and some brilliant, eventually made it clear: the comics would inevitably revert to the default status quo that a TV show or film would use. But in the 2000s, Marvel and DC began experimenting with making the kinds of massive changes they'd always had to roll back -- except this time, they would plan out in advance how the rollback would take place and make the experience a strong journey with some lasting effects here.

For example, Captain America was killed off and there was a multi-year story where we saw how the Marvel Universe coped without Steve Rogers and Bucky had to step up and grow a lot. Meanwhile, Norman Osborn took over the Marvel Universe. Eventually, Steve returned, toppled Osborn, but  Bucky remained Captain America until his Winter Soldier past was exposed and he stepped down. Things went back to how they started, but the circle was a fun ride.

It's the original Wally. Sorry, I thought that was clear from saying he was erased in 2011 and that he tries to find Linda. I've edited the post.

Very interesting comic came out this week: DC UNIVERSE REBIRTH. It's written by Geoff Johns, who has taken over as the Kevin Feige equivalent of the DC Cinematic Universe and has written a lot of mythically unifying superhero comics over the years. I think it's the mission statement for the DC movies going forward.

Johns wrote GREEN LANTERN, HAWKMAN and THE FLASH and he started writing them at a time when Green Lantern had become a mass-murdering supervillain who'd killed all his comrades and died, Hawkman had become a confused mess of conflicting timelines and the Flash was dead and had been replaced by his nephew.

With Green Lantern, Johns resurrected the character and all his friends and found a way to reveal that the villainous GL had been mind-controlled and that all the dead friends were in stasis and alive. With Hawkman, Johns used the character's reincarnation-backstory to justify all the contradictory continuity. With the Flash, Johns used the idea of the character having been suspended in the Speed Force to justify his return. With Green Lantern, Johns re-established that GL is part of an intergalactic police force. With Hawkman, Johns focused on the extended lifespan of the character and his historical experience. With the Flash, Johns focused on the character as a forensic police scientist.

Ever since the 2011 reboot, the DC superheroes have been hit and miss. Establishing that superheroes have only been in play for five years eliminated a lot of history. The comics also had a hyperviolent and angry tone that was often at odds with the series. A lot of the continuity was contradictory; how can Batman have a 10-year-old son? How can there have been past generations of Teen Titans? Also, the BATMAN and GREEN LANTERN titles continued their pre-reboot plotlines but in the post-reboot universe, except those plots depended on past events that had now been erased.

REBIRTH has Wally West, the third Flash (the redhaired one), unstuck in time. He was erased in the 2011 reboot. Here, he's drifting from moment to moment, witnessing the new history of this rebooted DC Universe and comparing it to the history he knows. He notes that this is a world where Green Arrow and Black Canary barely know each other -- and they live with a constant emptiness and sense of loss they can't explain. He sees Johnny Thunder of the Justice Society in an asylum, having gone mad from searching for the JSA which never existed in this new timeline. Superman and Batman aren't friends.

This rebooted timeline is described as corrupted. Cynical and grim. Love and hope are broken concepts in this damaged reality. The heroes are angry. Disturbed. Violent. Detached. Their lack of family and friendship makes them weak and alone. Wally, drifting and decaying into the Speed Force, seeks a familiar friend to anchor him to this reality. He sees the other Wally West -- the African American one, a cousin of Wally's. They were both named after the same grandfather. But his cousin never met him and cannot be his anchor. Wally seeks out Batman, but Batman doesn't remember him. He finds Linda, but she has no memory of him.

And then, losing cohesion, he visits Barry Allen -- the second Flash -- the only Flash in this corrupted timeline. Wally thanks his uncle for everything despite knowing Barry doesn't remember him. Wally says good-bye, surrendering to the Speed Force, knowing his individuality and memory will be lost.

But then Barry remembers Wally and rips him out of the Speed Force. Uncle and nephew hug, Barry crying, "How could I ever forget you?" Wally says that someone outside of time reached in and turned the heroes dark and grim, made them detached and lost.

But now that Wally's back, they can begin to restore what was taken away. Even now, says Wally, they're being watched by some malevolent being plotting war.

On the surface of the planet Mars, we find out who this figure is who created this corrupted timeline and stole history from our heroes. It's Dr. Manhattan. Yes, the character from WATCHMEN, last seen declaring his intention to create new life based on his interests, has removed what he deemed inefficient and distracting and unnecessary from the DC Universe -- history, family, legacy and hope. Wally believes a war is coming. A war against apathy, despair, indifference and cynicism.

So -- this comic is very clearly a rejection of a lot of the comics and films that DC and WB have been releasing as of late, and an outright condemnation of WATCHMEN and its effect on comic books and films -- and written by the man in charge of the films now.

At least that's how it seems to me. I'm sure Informant will have his own spin?

Terrifying dream:

DAN HARMON: "So who do we want to play Quinn Mallory's teenaged daughter?"

ME: "Uh -- well, she would have to look like a teenaged Zoe McLellan, right? So we find someone who has the same jawline."

DAN HARMON: "I admire your literalism, it must be so tranquil and unchallenging. But fine. If we aim for matching McLellan's jawline, we go with someone like this."

DAN HARMON: "Or we go for someone who can mimic Jerry's temperament and screen presence instead of someone who resembles an actress who played Jerry's female double in one episode."

ME: "Which temperament are we talking about?"

DAN HARMON: "Well, for me, the definitive Quinn-scene would be from 'Gillian' where Quinn is sitting in the chair, listening to Gillian talk about her problems and full of earnest empathy matched with the vision and intelligence of a genius. This girl has that look."

ME: "But she doesn't look like Zoe McLellan -- "

DAN HARMON: "God damn it. I quit. I hear Josef Anderson is available and he's clearly more your speed, you hack. Have fun trying to decide which actress plays a character in your imaginary project that isn't actually getting filmed."

ME: "You TAKE THAT BACK! YOU TAKE THAT -- "

At this point, I woke up.

I have cracked the screen on my smartphone. The tempered glass protector has a tiny, circular opening for the front-facing camera. There's a crack next to the camera lens. Probably from one of the times I dropped it.

Oh well! It was only a $160 phone. And I never use the front facing camera anyway. It's fine. I wonder if it's still waterproof, though.

I always enjoyed Marvel editor in chief Joe Quesada declaring that DC might as well call themselves AOL Comics as that would at least mean something. That logo is simply two letters in a circle. Personally, I think that DC might be better off using the individual emblem for each hero (Green Arrow's arrowhead, the Flash's lightning bolt, etc.) and just put DC COMICS next to it.

Amusingly, Tom Cruise used to be Jerry's idol. Jerry worked with him on JERRY MAGUIRE and Jerry's post-SLIDERS career was a shabby and deformed attempt at mimicking Cruise's trajectory as a heartthrob leading man whose good looks would win over an audience. Jerry neglected to develop Cruise's gift for performing characters and making them likable, compelling, forceful, convincing, charismatic and morally admirable -- but Jerry's sneering, smirking, swaggering performances after SLIDERS are very obviously modelled on what he thought Tom Cruise was good at.

During the period where Jerry was reinventing himself from failed would-be movie star to working class TV actor, Jerry again cited Tom Cruise as a model of physical fitness and a good example for him.

The weird thing is, as a Quinn-obsessive, I do feel that the Tom Cruise persona is a part of Quinn -- there is the part of Quinn who comes off as ridiculously attractive young man (who even when middle-aged looks young) who is always good at absolutely everything from bartending to stunt driving to flying planes to combat to science. But there is also another side to Quinn -- the neurotic, isolated, socially stunted loner who lives in his own head and has no concept of teamwork and is so lost in endless thought that he forgets to do laundry or get haircuts.

Robert Singer has been part of running the show since Season 1; he was Eric Kripke's partner and he's been involved in the show ever since. However, I don't really see Singer as a story-oriented producer. Although he weighs in and encourages and discourages certain things, he's more of a practical producer -- sets, actors, locations, filming schedules, makeup budgets, etc..

A huge part of SUPERNATURAL's excellence is that they know what they can and can't do well on a TV budget and they have a very skillful approach to rendering wars in heaven and the Apocalypse in a way that feels convincing without breaking the bank. And a lot of that is Robert Singer's experience as a director and producer, helping the writers realize their stories in a way that can be filmed and aired with the resources they have -- like saying that having the angels teleport onscreen would be too costly, but having them disappear from the frame between cuts would be effective.

Singer's expertise is why SUPERNATURAL has generally been able to avoid embarrassments like SMALLVILLE building up a Clark/Doomsday fight that lasted 30 seconds or having an 'epic' Season 10 finale consisting of people standing around talking. However, I don't see Singer has having as strong a voice as a writer -- he's more a guy who helps other writers execute their stories workably and visually while giving dialogue a bit of a polish like adding Dean's wisecracks.

SUPERNATURAL has had a lot of writers leave because they'd used up their ideas and felt it was time to move on before they started hacking out their work. Singer, despite being on the show since Season 1, has never experienced this and I think it's because he's not called upon to create ideas, but to help other people realize their ideas.

Andrew Dabb has been on the show since Season 4 and produced many fine scripts.The only script of his I really disliked was that absurd "Bloodlines" backdoor pilot.

Sarcasm aside, I don't know what you're arguing for at this point that isn't increasingly detached from anything resembling objective reality. You want to say that BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN is just as successful as CIVIL WAR but CIVIL WAR is receiving preferential treatment lauding its success when CIVIL WAR has earned more in two weeks than BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN has earned in eight.

You want to argue that BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN is actually doing better from an American standpoint when these giant budgeted blockbusters are designed for both domestic and foreign markets. You insist that BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN is a much loved film when the reaction from critics and the audience has ranged from middling to negative. You declare that the production and marketing budgets should not be a concern in measuring success even though CIVIL WAR likely spent just as much as Warner Bros. did on BVS.

Also, you insisted earlier that JUNGLE BOOK can't be considered to be doing that much better than BVS when it has a similar budget and earnings when JUNGLE BOOK has earned in four weeks about as much as BVS earned in eight.

You liked BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN. That's up to you and I am glad you enjoyed it (a sentiment to which you previously responded with 519 words of rage). You feel the Marvel Cinematic Universe "doesn't work" creatively, but you also want to argue that it doesn't work monetarily with claims that Netflix overspends on New York filming (based on your estimates on cost) while declaring that BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN's theorized marketing budget shouldn't be considered (as there are no estimates you feel you trust).

This petulance matched with your meltdown in the DC thread is looking increasingly like tantrums over reality not matching your personal preferences. It would suggest you've just decided that you'll insist upon the supremacy of DC cinema in every area regardless of facts and figures when the only area in which you can reasonably argue their superiority right now is that you personally prefer one to the other. Which, quite frankly, is the only argument you ever need to make when it comes to film and TV.

An interesting recurring line in CIVIL WAR was, "You move." It's from the AMAZING SPIDER-MAN issues that tied into CIVIL WAR which show the event from Peter Parker's perspective. In the stories leading up to CIVIL WAR, Peter had joined the Avengers and taken a job as Tony Stark's protege and second in command. Tony, choosing to help the US Government with the Registration Act, tells Peter that he must reveal his identity to the authorities or become a criminal. Spider-Man unmasks at a massive press conference and joins the Avengers (Iron Man, Captain Marvel, the Fantastic Four, Giant Man, Wonder Man) against the Anti-Registration heroes (Captain America, the Young Avengers, etc.).

However, Spider-Man experiences a crisis of conscience when Tony threatens Peter with imprisonment if he doesn't remain loyal to the Registration heroes, imprisons captured Anti-Registration without trial, accepts billions in no-bid security contracts with numerous countries to enforce Registration, drafts supervillains into hunting down Cap's forces -- and Spider-Man decides to switch sides. Iron Man attacks him and Spider-Man defeats Tony, then meets Captain America.

Spidey says he's not sure what to do -- he cannot stomach the Registration's measures, but the whole world seems sure that Registration is right and that the Anti-Registration heroes are turncoat criminals. Cap tells Spider-Man that a real patriot aligns one's self with what's right and true and that when the rest of the world is insisting on moving away from the river of truth, a true patriot says, "No. You move."

Interestingly, these issues, written by J. Michael Straczynski, were largely undone by continuity and the rest of the CIVIL WAR event. The hostile, threatening Tony Stark of the AMAZING SPIDER-MAN issues was well-meaning and earnest in the main CIVIL WAR series; the supervillains were shown to be totally controlled by mental implants, all the profits from the no-bid contracts were shown to be going into funds for victims of superhuman battles, Stark was looking for ways to help his friends get out of prison, etc..

These issues are also an odd fit with the CIVIL WAR mini-series where Cap surrenders to the Pro-Registration heroes after seeing the fear that normal people have towards the heroes fighting.

Tony would later declare that he'd done wrong with Peter -- and helped Dr. Strange and Mr. Fantastic erase the world's memory of Spidey's secret identity, allowing Peter to resume a normal life again. The CIVIL WAR editor, Tom Brevoort, noted that he'd not edited the AMAZING SPIDER-MAN issues as he wasn't the SPIDER-MAN editor, and that Tony's villainous characterization should not have been scripted that way.

The AMAZING SPIDER-MAN issues were an anomaly, and writer J. Michael Straczynski would confess he couldn't wrap his head around Tony being Pro-Registration and he saw Registration as fascist and morally unacceptable -- as opposed to the CIVIL WAR mini-series presenting Registration in a highly ambiguous fashion. Straczynski quit SPIDER-MAN shortly after this, saying he wasn't good at crossovers and he wished he hadn't gotten involved. The Marvel Universe moved on.

But it's cool that they used his dialogue. (Sorry, Informant.)

Oh, at one point, Matt asked me to review Ian McDuffie's PARADISE LOST: THE COMIC BOOK, a volume that I personally consider unreviewable, resulting in this essay:

http://earthprime.com/essays/paradise-lost-the-comic

Just got back from seeing CIVIL WAR. I liked it! It wasn't the cinematic event of the century and it wasn't as significant as I would have liked, but it was very character oriented and very focused on the personal conflicts that become physical ones. It was a very enjoyable piece of fantasy escapism with a lot of strong emotional points. The humour throughout kept the film lighthearted and fun and actually made the more serious moments stand out when the jokes disappear.

I also liked how CIVIL WAR worked in a lot of references to the previous films in a respectful way, like Steve saying "I could do this all day" or the fact that Tony blames himself more than anyone else specifically because he insisted on creating Ultron. The film did a great job of giving every character a significant visual moment and there were really tender moments like the Falcon abandoning Steve and Bucky because he saw War Machine go down.

In terms of consequences, I think killing any one of the heroes off would have pushed the film too far into the bloody vengeance that the Black Panther specifically rebukes and refuses to engage in to the point of refusing to let his father's killer die.

In terms of the criticisms -- anyone looking for a specific political statement in a Marvel Cinematic Film might as well complain that a car sucks because it can't serve as a boat. This is hardly meant to be Serious Cinema. It's a children's fantasy presented for a family audience. Those seeking superhero films of infinite grimness and misery have already had their turn this year.

**

The INHUMANS movie was a pet project for ousted Marvel Film executive Ike Perlmutter whose anger over FOX hanging onto the X-MEN rights had him declare that Marvel's film and publishing would use the Inhumans as a replacement for mutants -- hence their increased presence in AGENTS OF SHIELD and the plan to lead to an INHUMANS film -- except Perlmutter was removed from the film side, so while he's still doing the TV and Netflix material, the films are no longer pursuing Perlmutter's interests. In fact, the CIVIL WAR writers were told they needn't even watch AGENTS OF SHIELD.

I would prefer to see SUPERGIRL continue as it has, albeit with fine-tuning the series a bit so that its contradictory elements aren't so contradictory. The massive budget cut that will result from shifting to the CW network? I'd handle that by having at least one-third of the season be Supergirl-light episodes in the way Superman was usually a cameo role on LOIS AND CLARK. Nothing wrong with focusing on Kara Danvers instead of Kara Zor-El for a few weeks at a time.

As for the problem of the DEO and CATCO being two separate and contradictory entities -- I'd merge the two where the DEO starts using CATCO as a cover for its operations and none of the CATCO employees notice that their workplace has been unknowingly re-purposed into an information center for spies. I'd shift Winn into working at the DEO full-time and put Jimmy in a CATCO outpost in the city as a crime reporter, and have him supporting Kara in the Supergirl-lite stories while Winn and Alex feature heavily in the Supergirl-centric adventures. This would also allow for hiring the the supporting actors for 13 episodes a year instead of the full 22 the way SMALLVILLE would handle cast.

If Mehcad Brooks has to leave, send him back to Metropolis and have him return occasionally as a guest-star. If Callista Flockhart can't stay on full time, I'd like her to be running her empire from afar and to be a constant voiceover/cell phone presence -- maybe she's just globe-trotting but literally phoning in her work. If Jeremy Jordan doesn't stay, have him hired by the DEO on a secret mission. If Chyler Leigh can't be retained, have her searching for Dean Cain offscreen. If David Harewood doesn't make the jump to LA... well, he's the god-damn Martian Manhunter; he can have a different face.

But yeah, I guess you could have Supergirl fall into the ARROWverse as well.

Well, any movie that enters $700 million in two weeks is still a runaway success.

I always thought the show had generally compared God (as opposed to Chuck) to John Winchester, specifically in Season 4 - 5 where the angels, in the absence of God, are running along their pre-determined course to bring about the Apocalypse, deprived of free will much as John took away Sam and Dean's choices and drafted them into monster hunting. Dean explicitly describes God (again, as opposed to Chuck) as a "deadbeat dad with a lot of excuses."

In Season 6, it's revealed that Castiel, after Lucifer was sealed, immediately announced to the angels that God had given them all their freedom, which would appear to be the end goal of God subsuming himself entirely in the Chuck personality and only intervening in small ways (rescuing Sam and Dean and providing them with exposition to get them in the same place). Once the angels had free will and the Apocalypse was averted, God retired entirely and Chuck became the whole personality.

Of course, this led to additional problems: the free-willed angels were eager to get the Apocalypse back on track, much to God and Castiel's dismay. Castiel unlocked the Leviathans, Sam unlocked Amara, Lucifer impersonated God by using John Winchester's face in visions for Sam and Chuck threw his hands in the air and gave up.

I thought it was pretty neat how Rob Benedict maintain's Chuck's affable, vulnerable persona until Megatron calls him a coward, at which point Benedict affects an enraged, vengeful presence and his face seems like little more than a mask for a terrifying force behind it, only for the final scenes to see both sides of Chuck merged into one as Chuck plays the guitar. Also, the episode seems to be annoying people who are always fun to annoy with its apparently offensive claims that Chuck is hands-off and is in some ways inferior to humans.

It seems rather arbitrary to me to declare that everything Chuck in this episode was a lie because he's been involved in previous episodes, especially when those past episode are addressed in dialogue. Chuck outright states that his appearances in Seasons 4 - 5 were because he wanted a "good seat" for the Apocalypse and that "acting's fun" and later, Metatron says that the "deadline" is Amara destroying all of reality, which Chuck doesn't deny at all. The episode repeatedly highlights how Chuck can't / doesn't / won't control people. And also, if Chuck was going to get involved all along, it would undermine what this episode has to say about Chuck stepping back from reality to encourage choice and free will -- which he demonstrates by deciding to intervene in Amara's fog.

It struck me that SUPERNATURAL actually divorced itself from religion and theology with this episode of SUPERNATURAL where we finally get Chuck's point of view. He was masquerading as Chuck in every previous episode; everytime Chuck expressed fear or suicidal impulses, it was a performance, albeit a performance where he began transitioning into the Chuck persona so deeply that it became his identity as God as well.

"Don't Call Me Shurley" point-blank declares that God isn't omnipotent or omniscient, nor does he have a grand design or any kind of plan for existence. The human race, Earth and the angels were simply "experiments" and his creations often had unexpected situations and results such as turning evil, resurrecting brothers better off dead or demonic, etc.. Chuck claims he "barely" contained Amara the first time and that he also couldn't predict future events, which would explain why his maneuvering Sam and Dean into containing Lucifer saw the subsequent apocalypse that led to the Leviathans escaping.

So what it comes down to is that everything in the SUPERNATURAL universe exists due to a series of accidents from a being who may seem all-powerful from a human perspective but is actually flawed and vulnerable and capable of severe errors in judgement. God in SUPERNATURAL doesn't lord over existence; he merely originated it and then chose to step back, which largely removes Chuck's authorial presence from controlling events to merely chronicling them.

If anything, this makes Chuck even more of a representation of Eric Kripke, with the only slight shift being that in a real-world context, Chuck doesn't solve everything because that would make it impossible to tell SUPERNATURAL stories whereas in-universe, perhaps further divine intervention would warp the SUPERNATURAL universe and demolish free will and self-actualization.

With comic books -- well, I was recently reading WITCHBLADE, THE DARKNESS and its assorted crossover mini-serieses which include FIRST BORN and ARTIFACTS as well as its spin-offs, ANGELUS and the ongoing ARTIFACTS. I would read WITCHBLADE until the ads or the letters page informed me that there was a crossover. Then I would switch to reading THE DARKNESS and read until I was synced up with WITCHBLADE. Then I'd read the crossovers, then move back to reading WITCHBLADE until I hit the next crossover at which point I'd double back and continue with THE DARKNESS until arriving at the crossover again. Sometimes, I didn't read things in the right order but would only realize halfway in and I would start over again at the crossover point and get it right this time.

I received an E-mail a few weeks ago complimenting me on how the character of Razor in SLIDERS REBORN was a very strong original creation. Terrifying.

Well, having cost-assessed BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN as basically letting WB break even, the same perspective applied to SUPERGIRL yields an even worse result. SUPERGIRL's ratings don't justify a $3 million per episode licensing fee. WB either needs to reduce the fee (as they did for CHUCK) to offset the lower revenue in advertising or the show needs a lower budget -- and I don't know if it's even possible. Berlanti has said outright that SUPERGIRL can't be done on a CW budget; the show uses lavish wire rig effects and detailed location filming and intricate fight scenes that require just as much practical work as well as CG. I don't see where costs could be cut; the show is already struggling to render Supergirl. There's a reason why Clark rarely flew or had extensive superfights on SMALLVILLE.

Creatively, I think SUPERGIRL tried to cast too wide a net. As a family show, the content was fine, but the contradictory approach to Kara and her world (she's an adolescent adult who's a glorified intern as a highly placed espionage officer) resulted in a version of Supergirl who wasn't one or the other or much of anything. The result was a character and a show that was internally opposed to each facet of itself and the final product was confusing despite the accessible nature of the stories. I'd like to see a second season, but I really could not blame CBS if they simply couldn't afford it.

Feel sorry for Informant? Quite frankly, **** Informant. Informant can **** right off. Informant was looking forward to BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN and he enjoyed BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN and while we can debate its creative merits and earnings endlessly, it's set the direction that the DC Cinematic Universe is going to follow AND he's going to get an extended cut that will likely be in theatres. The only winner here when it comes to BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN is Informant.

And we should be pleased for that. It's a bit like how the Sliders Rewatch podcasters enjoyed "The Exodus" Parts 1 - 2. We despise those episodes, but I'm glad they enjoyed watching John Rhys-Davies get shot and blown up after getting his brain sucked out -- because we should never want anyone to have a bad time.

This was a rather caustic way of saying that I'm happy Informant's happy.

I would install Android on the T100 Chi if I could get it to dual-boot. It works fine as a mini-laptop. The truth is that despite my increase use of my phone for RSS feeds, social media, E-mail, instant messaging, ebooks, etc., there are times when you just need a laptop. I can plug this laptop into the HDMI ports of TVs, use the memory card slot and USB ports to help friends do data transfers, sort files, convert documents, have documents open side by side, etc.. A PC may not be the speediest route for some tasks, but it's always going to be the more versatile machine when facing off against a phone or tablet.

If it weren't for comic books, I would have probably sold the tablet by now, although it is my preferred web browser until I want to type something. The only quirk this laptop has that I haven't entirely solved -- the Bluetooth touchpad used to go haywire and lose all sensitivity, seeing the cursor move around either sluggishly or randomly. Eventually, I found that disabling touchpad scrolling and gestures fixed it, so I think the driver was badly programmed. It kind of sucks to have a touchpad where you can't scroll -- or it would if you didn't have a touchscreen.

****

And now on alternate character interpretations in a long-running series:

So, I've been catching up on WITCHBLADE comics lately. Sara Pezzini is a New York homicide detective who finds a mystical bracelet that can form body armour, fire bursts of energy, form weapons and equipment and appears to have had a long line of female wielders who used it to fight evil. The first 79 issues were mostly crap until visionary writer Ron Marz came aboard the book and changed it from a bad girl in a metal bikini series to the eerily supernatural police procedural with feminist overtones that it probably should have always been. Marz was caustic in interviews towards the previous incarnation of the comic -- but he was super-respectful in his actual scripting, maintaining the previous mythology and making sure not to contradict his predecessors -- except in one case.

The original WITCHBLADE writers had an unhealthy fixation on one of the lead antagonists, Ian Nottingham, an assassin in the pay of a wealthy industrialist. In the first issue, Ian murders Detective Sara Pezzini's partner. In the following issues, Nottingham is portrayed as a mysterious, deadly, romantic figure who approaches Sara and attempts to save her from monsters. Sara is attracted to him despite the fact that he's a remorseless killer who executed her friend.

Throughout the first 79 issues of the series, Nottingham kills numerous people, most of them criminal figures and is shown to be largely in thrall to his masters but with an inexplicable attachment to Sara -- and the series presents him as an appealing, romantic, desirable man with long, flowing hair, a katana blade, rippling muscles and Sara perpetually in awe of his silent, moody, detached, aloof persona. They work together on occasion to fight monsters, Ian always disappearing afterwards before Sara can decide whether to have sex with him or arrest him.

Ron Marz took over the series and wrote a brief two issue arc with #92 - #93 where Nottingham returns, being chased by the Yakuza whom he claims are pursuing him because he helped the Japanese justice department against them. He asks for Sara's help.

Marz scripts Nottingham very differently; the mysterious, tormented, terse assassin has become chatty, condescending, flirty, and constantly flattering Sara and putting down her work as a police officer. He kills numerous Yakuza agents while insisting to Sara that he's doing his job to fight for justice. It's revealed that Nottingham is lying; he wasn't working with the police in Japan; he was killing Yakuza leaders to take their power for himself -- everything he said to Sara about justice was just manipulative rhetoric; his attraction to Sara is just an empty mind game and this time, Sara punches him out and arrests him at last.

Marz takes a formerly mysterious, detached, thoughtful, and in some ways unknowable figure and first re-characterizes him as obvious and shallow before revealing that he's a selfish man whose every spoken word is worthless crap. On one level, Marz has written a completely new character and given him the same name as an old one. On another, Marz is making the point that strip away the mystique and romance from the Ian of #1 - 79 and you get the Ian of #92 - #93: a self-serving, manipulative murderer whom Sara should have arrested ages ago.

I just wonder if there's a smoother way to handle it. I guess it's something you only need to consider if you're taking over from a previous writer.

I think the Marvel movies are as successful as they can in presenting the Marvel Universe as a single reality given that all the characters are from completely different genres that would ideally exist in their own world. As for DC -- stepping back from my personal opinions, I think we could all agree that creatively, DC is quite happy with their approach to their universe. WB executives stood up and applauded at the first screening of BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN. They didn't cancel any upcoming movies. They are looking to add a bit more humour. Aside from that, however, they're continuing as planned.

I don't think the DC cinematic universe is considered to be on the same multidimensional axis (as Smarter-Quinn might put it) as SUPERGIRL and the CW shows. I don't think Barry's tachyon accelerator could take him to the Snyder films' universe -- at least not in terms of the storytelling logic set up so far. When we saw flashes of other dimensions, we saw Melissa Benoist's SUPERGIRL and we saw the 90s FLASH TV series in which Barry Allen looks like John Wesley Shipp -- but that makes TV sense in that Barry in the 90s show was older and would look like the CW Flash's father -- who is also played by John Wesley Shipp. Also, we've met Tina McGee in the CW universe, who was also a character on the 90s FLASH show and also played by the same actress, Amanda Pays. The Trickster, played by Mark Hamill in the 90s show, is again played by the same actor in the CW show.

The CW series is set in a parallel version of the 90s universe in which Barry was born at a later date in time for some undisclosed reason. Either this is a parallel universe where Henry and Nora Allen conceived Barry at a later point in their lives, or the cross temporal battles between Eobard Thawne and Barry Allen altered the 90s FLASH timeline into the CW FLASH timeline. This was done partially in tribute to the 90s show (which the FLASH showrunners really like) and partially due to their casting choices; I wouldn't say they conceived the show as an alternate timeline for the previous show, but it's what they ended up making. The only discontinuity is that Iris West's one episode of the previous FLASH show had her played by Paula Marshall who obviously isn't an older or younger version of Candice Patton.

It's a bit like Temporal Flux's idea for rebooting SLIDERS where the original characters discover sliding at a later date in life. And it's a bit like Matt Hutaff's idea for rebooting SLIDERS -- where a cosmic cataclysm altered reality in a way that delayed the inciting incident of the series.

Alternatively -- the Ezra Miller version of the Flash had a different mother or father and it, like Robert Floyd's Mallory, actually a brother of the earlier version of the character but with the same name.

I have developed an unholy addiction to my Windows 10 tablet. I don't know what the hell is wrong with me. I keep trying to use it as a touch browser / comic book reader / e-reader / instant messenger every few months. It's always a disaster. The only decent e-reader app that doesn't crash and freeze on Windows 10 is Kobo and half the time, it won't boot if there's no wifi connection. The touchscreen keyboard is an abomination with no swipe typing and a layout that constantly sees the backslash take the place of a space. The comic book reader frequently presents a black screen as the next page, the thing randomly stops responding to touch input and every single time I use it as a tablet, I have to reinstall at least one driver (the accelerometer or the suddenly lost network protocols).

I'm using the Asus T100 Chi, but my friend Henrietta has the Surface Pro 3 and it has exactly the same issues. I need to stop wasting time trying to use this thing something it's not when I already have an iPad mini. I just feel compelled to TRY every now and then and it is always, always, always a mistake. Maybe I should sell it and get a non-touchscreen / no-detachment laptop instead.

It's an odd paradox where the Marvel Cinematic Universe is largely a bloodless one. The Battle of New York in AVENGERS was in many ways nonsensically low key in terms of collateral damage. It makes absolutely no sense that Hawkeye's quiver of arrows and Black Widow's handguns could maintain any kind of perimeter that kept the attacks confined to a handful of blocks -- which is the explanation given onscreen.

Slider_Quinn21 was fine with it, Informant and I thought it was stupid. But I did applaud the effort, the genuinely well-intended goal that the Avengers were focused on containing the battle and isolating it from the civillians. It's a key point in the visuals.

AGE OF ULTRON takes the same style, only this time, it makes narrative sense: the focus is on evacuation and AGENTS OF SHIELD spent half a season building up a secret weapon of inestimable power -- the weapon turns out to be a Helicarrier and its power is to evacuate the innocent. It's a bit like SUPERGIRL for me where so long as the values are appreciable and meaningful and the visual storytelling has momentum and drive, I'm willing to go with it -- and ULTRON was far more coherent than the Battle of New York. Nobody complained that the Avengers were indifferent to human life.

In terms of MAN OF STEEL and BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN, it's a constant complaint. Universal among most of the reviewers. Most of the reviewing audience remarked on Superman's flat emotional affect, his deadened expression, his lack of warmth and charm -- and while that doesn't require that any individual person to agree with that, this sample size would indicate that a sizable segment of the audience found Superman unpleasant.

And I think it's simply because the editing and shot composition were not focused on Superman saving lives and sequences of him performing humanitarian acts were undoubtedly scripted and filmed -- but cut. The MAN OF STEEL treatment includes a segment where Clark tries to fly Zod away from Metropolis; I suspect it was cut because the creators felt the shots of Superman smashing through skyscrapers was more exciting. It is likely, given the original running length of BVS, that we were going to see more of Clark rescuing the space shuttle and the flood victims and trying to save someone, anyone, in the Senate explosion -- but this was cut in favour of shorthanding it to individual shots of Superman standing at a distance.

As a result, even though the dialogue says Superman cares about people and tries to help them, the visuals are not there to *sell* it. For the Marvel Cinematic Universe, however, the visuals are absolutely there; Cap setting up an evacuation route in AVENGERS, IRON MAN III's standout sequence being Tony saving freefalling plane passengers, AGE OF ULTRON's action climax being an emergency evacuation. With MAN OF STEEL and BVS, saving people was incidental to fighting -- and since it was incidental, it was considered expendable and cut from the film.

In LOIS AND CLARK, there's an amusing episode where Superman is refereeing a Little League baseball game and gamely enduring the taunts of a child complaining about one of his calls. I can't really see Henry Cavill doing that, but that's one of the absurdist aspects of superheroes I tend to enjoy and the Warner Bros. studio clearly does not enjoy.