I'm just so damn excited to see Helena Bertinelli back in existence (and I thought pretty well done, at that), that there wasn't much room left for me to take much else away from this episode. The only other major thing that sprung to mind, though, was that we now have another Merlyn on this show, which suddenly…

I feel your pain, and I would obviously prefer Canary to have her one superpower than to not, but of all the things this show has (or will) changed and/or removed entirely, the Canary Cry is one of the things I'm less intent on complaining about.

I'm strangely okay with Canary not having the cry. My favorite version of her is the one that focused on her martial arts and refused to use the cry in most situations because it was unfair. As long as they can maintain that she is a powerful martial artist, I won't be too, too upset.

I'm hoping this turns out to actually be science fiction, not drama masquerading as science fiction, like everything Brit Marling does.

I'll grant that, but the amount of content being released by comics vs. any other media is abysmal, and it wasn't always that way. I've read huge amounts of Silver Age comics, and they were significantly longer, comparable at least to 22 minute tv shows in illustrated form, and taking me about an hour to read. …

You seem to be missing Redwall. Like, any of the Redwall books. Full cast recordings of all the dialogue make them part radio drama/part novel, and all of it narrated by Scotland's second greatest voice.

I really like the idea of finishing it quickly; in a world where we can watch 45 minutes of a tv show on a weekly or near weekly basis for almost half the year at a time, comics need to step up their production. I've been thinking for a while that they should eschew the typical 12 monthly issues deal and start doing…

It's Green Arrow in a shocking crossover event. That's the big surprise.

Fan Fiction Friday is now on io9. May God have mercy on us all.

I'll say it, Tommy was downright charming and likable in this episode; it will actually be pretty sad when "Laurel" cheats on him with Oliver and he gets (somewhat justifiably) pissed and goes after her a bit too aggressively and her father intervenes and somehow (mostly) accidentally gets killed at Tommy's hands then…

United States education is crap. There's a lot that needs fixing.

And I don't even mind if we don't necessarily see other major characters, but I'd like the world to feel like they maybe could happen. And I'd definitely like the characters we do get to feel like they're supposed to.

I'm just saying she looks cool. A porcelain person sounds like a cool character to me.

I think I'll watch this, but mostly for the china girl.

I know, we live in a post Avengers world, where a solid, straight comic adaptation made all the money. It's increasingly frustrating to see that DC project absolutely refuse to acknowledge that people are willing to watch comic book series that aren't afraid to be based on comic books.

Entertaining for a while, but how long will mob bosses, drug dealers, and assassins continue to be entertaining. With Vertigo, they could have gone for an attempted usurping of a foreign throne, with Ollie caught in the middle somehow. By looking at that and saying "eh, that's too much, let's just make him a drug…

Dammit, Arrow, this is exactly what I was afraid was going to happen when you said Count Vertigo. I was trying to be optimistic, and I was getting all excited that you were finally doing a comic booky villain as opposed to a strictly realistic one, and when you finally go through with it, it's a lame "realistic take"…

On the subject of unfortunate events happening to Tommy on Arrow, anyone get the suspicion that Dinah reprising her relationship with Ollie is what's going to send him over the edge into villainy? And that he'll then kill her father, which will send her over the edge into Black Canary-dom?

It's not even exclusively Bat family characters I'm waiting for, it's that Black Canary and the Birds of Prey are what finally got me into comics (where Teen Titans and Long Halloween and several other attempts failed). As much as I like Green Arrow, I like the Birds of Prey way more and when I see multiple members…

The guy they have (in this episode at least) is really just a stunt man, no previous acting gigs worth a mention other than "Male Wraith" on Stargate Atlantis. And I'm kind of okay with this, as I honestly don't need to see Slade without his mask. If he can deliver most if not all of his lines while in full costume,…