This speaks to me as a father. My parents had no idea of the challenges that were going to face me in raising my own child. How do you guard against kids on the playground telling your child important sci-fi plot points when you aren't around? How can you keep them safe? This is the kind of thing that keeps me up…

That invasion through New Orleans sure seems to be relying on a lot of Arkansas hillbilly 5th columnists.

@Charlie Jane Anders: Oh. Right. I bet he's fat now.

I have to say that maybe Paul is immortal. He looks remarkably unchanged from his Highlander days. I thought that he would have gotten fat.

Shades of Johnny Dangerously: [www.youtube.com]

I just realized with this cover what my general problem with fantasy book covers is. The characters are generally put in a pre-industrial world, but when they are on the covers they are always clean, well-dressed and well coiffed. They need some dirtying up.

Michonne is a fine character and no doubt a badass, but I don't think that she can be considered the biggest badass in comic history. I would have to give that to Judge Dredd, the toughest lawman of Mega-City One, or Jonah Hex who, one dumb movie aside, is apparently on a course to kill everyone in the Old West. …

@ShachiAssaracus: Awesome. If I were to do this, I would put that on plaque on the reef ball. But I am going more simply. Just wrap me in a sheet and put me in a hole.

HA! I have The Nemesis of Evil on my shelf. It was Lin Carter trying to do Doc Savage. The series is not good.

In a more personal reef-building exercise, you can use your own body. After you die, of course. [www.reefball.org]

@Thus Spake Kate is effulgent.: I don't know why I made the foolish assumption that it didn't exist already.

@FatherAnonymous: Okay, well let me qualify. I have read a great deal of all of those hero pulps that were mentioned (The Shadow, The Spider, G-8, Operator 5 and Doc) and will agree that all of them (Doc included) are formulaic and repetitive. They were written for, shall we say, less sophisticated and demanding…

@gaveedra: That was my very first thought. Now there is going to be a whole new subset of Buffy fanfic having to do with amputation.

@sakuuya: I completely agree. I didn't get past the third book

@grendelprime54: No. It was a brilliant piece of casting.

Wow, I have to take some exception to the line that Doc Savage's stories were uniformly awful. I think that that is painting with much, much too wide a brush.

@Grey_Area: I am very, very glad that he is finally here. Now, if only his pulp encyclopedia would hurry!

@Jeriba: I am pretty sure the sequel was about that guy who could turn into various geological formations to solve crimes. You know... "Maneral".

@justajason: Oh, no. I have watched both and loved both and I think that BatManuel was an excellent addition to the Tick. Nestor Carbonell will always be BatManuel to me, no matter how many roles he plays.

How about Dexter? The TV show has no fantasy/sci-fi elements, but the books do, including psychic dreams, ancient gods and weird alien entities. The show is much better than the books and I think that it is because it dumped the fantasy angle. Serial killers can be quite scary enough all on their own.