Buck Rogers had a transporter?! Damn, I should have known that, and Iabsolutely didn't.

When I was a student at Vassar, lo these many moons ago, we were often reminded of Maria Mitchell, since the observatory she used there (and which was named in her honor) is located near the center of the small campus. You pretty much couldn't help but walk by it a few times each day, and ... well, an observatory…

Really more becAuse they were our allies. Although the occupation haEva lot to do with that, so did the presence of a vengeful and, by the 50s, communist China.

Chesley Bonestell, man. The guy was awesome.

Now that's just adorable.

So what did they run instead? And how long did it last?0

Plastic Man.

I've read them all, long ago, and don't find them any more persuasive than I find Boswell himself. The First Things article, in particular, is sort of useless — "when I was in Armenia last year [or wherever], that wasn't what the priest said it meant." Shocking.

As a Lutheran who spent most of the last four years living among the Orthodox, I don't laugh exactly, but I do give a reflexive facepalm.

I believe the DC Univi\erse is reaching a Crisis, and will now reboot.

Yup. If this story proves to be true (and I'm betting it does), we can assume Weiner is a sexual compulsive of some sort. Since his compulsion has already cost him his job and apparently endangered his marriage, it's fair to call it "dangerous."

I was going to offer a flat "no," perhaps with some snark. And that is indeed the way I feel about the level of enlightened self-restraint we usually see from the various Enterprise crew members.

More than that. Last I heard (which was a while ago) the Vatican's chief astronomer — a position they've had since long before any real nations cared about that stuff — was an expert in multiple-universe theories. He was also a Jesuit, and the joke was that if the guy could actually find another universe, his team…

I stumbled over one of these at a rummage sale last week, and just started cracking up. It's no Thanos-copter, but it sure is ludicrous.

Nice one.

Anybody remember the climax of the book "The Man With the Golden Gun"? He has Scaramanga — whom he has been sent to assassinate, mind you — trapped in a swamp, but has a hard time just pulling the trigger. So he stalls, asking the guy if there's anything he needs taken care of ... after. Finally, as Scaramanga…

Funny. I was just about to post about my thought that Doc Savage really lacks most of those qualities, or has them only in small amounts. (3/5 of his posse is forgettable).

I've been waiting 20 years for somebody to ask me whether dragons are subject to original sin. Not to mention resenting the way Jim Lee neglected to ask my opinion about Superman's costume.

The Seventh Seal. I saw that thing in Mexico City just before Holy Week of 1989, I think. If I recall correctly, her upstairs lodger is the second coming of Christ — "the first time, I came as a lamb; this time I'm a lion." I walked out, declared it the most ridiculous thing I had ever seen in my life, and went to…

As a kid, I loved 20,000 Leagues, and I was lucky enough to score a copy of Walter James Miller's 1965 unabridged translation, complete with an introductory essay describing just how bad the earlier translations had been, and how they had led American readers to misjudge Verne.