I'm not sure if Cap started flying before Superman did. (Though I won't say for sure that he didn't.) I was surprised to see in an interview with C.C. Beck that Captain Marvel didn't fly, originally (and Beck really hated drawing it— he thought it was stupid).

Jimmy really isn't a dweeb in the comics the way he is in adaptations. He's generally there as a reader viewpoint character, so he's young and impetuous, but also successful and heroic. His classic incarnation was a successful news photographer with a stewardess girlfriend (when they weren't broken up so he could…

Except that Legion fans would of course be ticked for Kara's love interest in the Legion being Mon-El rather than Brainiac 5.

I don't think that was the causation— Mon-El joined the LSH long before there was any attempt to make them independent of Superboy. In Silver Age DC (at least in the Superman books), the Kryptonian power set was just a default thing you could get by any number of means. Lana Lang got it from magic lake water, Perry…

Dev-Em would make a good love interest for Kara, wouldn't he? (I'm thinking classic Dev-Em, teenaged jerk who grows out of it -> space secret agent too cool for the Legion of Super-Heroes.) They could even bond over both having babysat for Kal-El.

Only sometimes. Krypton was a utopian Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers dream (with a bit of a blind spot about its vulnerability) for much longer, and occasionally gets to be again for a bit. Since nothing goes away forever in comics, I'm hoping to see that swing back around one of these days. (Though obviously not in this…

Yeah. I've even occasionally seen the opposition where the good character can stay thin effortlessly, despite having a hearty appetite (and not having it be a superpower as Kara does), while the equally thin bad character demonstrates her character flaws by actually having to work at it.

responded to point out to my fellow Americans that Alexei did not live in "miserable" conditions in the USSR. (quote from a commenter: "having lived under terrible conditions")

As discussed, it really depends where you were. Whether I'd rather be at the Somme or Stalingrad is one of those questions that I dearly hope I never have enough relevant experience to be able to answer. But WWII has many more total battlefield deaths, even leaving aside the atrocities against civilians.

The New York Times of the 1980s would be rather more inclined to report an American atrocity than the Times of the 30s was to report a Soviet one. (And the US is under the observation of thousands of skeptical reporters, rather than a handful of friendly ones.)

Alexei would not grow up in the USSR resenting not having a Bennigan's.

Considering what's happened to the targets P&E have liked, what will happen to Alexei will presumably be unspeakably awful. (Almost certainly involving direct betrayal by his son, given that Pavlik's name practically telegraphs it.) But I'm not looking forward to seeing it.

Alexei's wonder at something like Bennigan's suggests that the standard of living he'd previously experienced was rather below what the US would consider squarely middle class. Being merely relatively privileged, in an institution with a lock on the exit and the threat of facing the same fate as his father if he steps…

Well, you don't just leave and go back to the USSR after such betrayal. Nobody would listen if you say that your husband forced you. The punishment could be pretty severe.

"Tuan Things I Hate About You"

Now I want to see a conversation in which Tuan and Elizabeth compare what they've had to do for the cause, and Elizabeth concludes that Tuan's had the harder job.

That's amazing. Thanks for the link.

Remember that guy who was adopted by the family in Texas and convinced them he was their long lost son who'd been kidnapped from rural Texas and within a few years changed his eye color and developed a foreign accent? (Also—receding hairline.)

Anything's possible, but an orphan who actually fled Vietnam in a dodgy boat ahead of Hanoi taking charge probably isn't the most fertile ground for becoming a Communist agent. Even if he became embittered against the US, the regime that chased him out of the country wouldn't likely be the first place to look for…

I can sound out Hebrew, and could probably do so with Greek with a little review, but I'm in no danger of quickly picking up either language. How far Martha has gotten with Russian may remain to be seen.