The announcement of the casting of Wonder Woman in the ‘Man Of Steel’ sequel has many contingents of the intarwebz up in arms.  The most fascinating argument against the inclusion of the Amazing Amazon is the one that opines that the character is too famous to be just a “guest-star” in somebody else’s movie (even though we have zero information on her role in the film.)  My hope for the movie is that Diana and Bruce serve as counterpoints to Superman (like the cartoon angel/devil on Woody Woodpecker’s shoulders) telling us more about each character by contrasting him/her to the other two.  Still, the inclusion of 60% of the classic Super-Friends in the movie does beg an interesting query…

The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) never fully understood why Batman got equal billing with the two most powerful people on the planet, asking: Would you like to see a single movie about all three of DC’s classic Trinity?

It’s been a couple of weeks since the epic 50th anniversary ‘Doctor Who’ story aired, and I’ve spent an awful lot of time mulling it over in my head, as well as interacting with my fellow nerds to see if others enjoyed it as much as I did.  The return to greatness after an inconsistent season made me happy, and gives me hope that the new era of ‘Who’ could be a real winner.  With that milestone out of the way, though, my nerdly high hopes turn towards J.J. Abrams upcoming ‘Star Wars Episode VII’ (which I hope has a better title than that, ’cause even The Phantom Menace is superior to just a Roman numeral).  Of course, since we’re all friends here (even Rob), perhaps this shift in anticipation also begs a query…

The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) occasionally likes to cut through the subtext and ask the question we’re all quietly thinking, asking: Time-Lord or Jedi?

No matter how successful the newest iteration of Star Trek is, there will always be a part of me that compares them to the original Trek crew.  Certainly there are talented actors on Abrams’ V.2 Trek project, able to make the characters their own, but there may never be an ensemble that affects me the way the 1966 cast could.  Of course, it should be noted that I am a sucker for a good “team”, whether it be Ted Mosby and his pals or the cruelly and criminally underrated Justice League Detroit squad of my youth, and breaking down the archetypes and roles of those teams is how I fill many an idle hour.  (For the record, for all the static I’ve given Rodrigo during sessions of Critical Hit, the idea of party roles is one that has grown on me, especially when you figure that Torq and Montgomery Scott fill a similar slot in their respective groups.)  This, in turn, begs a query…

The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) admits that Captain Reynolds and his ragtag crew are incredibly compelling as well, asking: What is the most perfectly balanced ensemble cast in all of pop culture?

There are those who complain that zombie-flavored stories are too prevalent, as if the use of the shuffling dead were in itself a genre, rather than props used to evoke a particular mood.  For my part, I enjoyed the early installments of ‘Marvel Zombies’, especially the bits where undead Peter Parker laments having killed and eaten his family in the same tone he used to whine about working for J. Jonah Jameson, and have often thought that it would be interesting other hero-types in similar settings.  How might Indiana Jones face a wave of revenants?  Or George Costanza?  Would Jack Skellington have an edge against a horde clamoring to eat flesh, or would become their leader and sic them on Wallace and Gromit?

The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) believes that Talking Heads had a great point when they said, “Stop Making Sense”, asking: What fictional character (who doesn’t already live in a zombie story) would survive longest after the zombie apocalypse?

As a fan of comic book history, it’s interesting to look at the various “boom” periods, and the characters and concepts spawned from those expansion points.  The original Golden Age post-Batman explosion featured any number of loony concepts for books, from Madame Fatal (cross-dressing two-fisted mystery “woman”) to The Clown (who was a clown.)  In the 90s, we discovered that all you needed to be a superhero was a pair of shoulder-pads and a noun that sounded badass.  My favorite epic expansion, though, came circa 1966, where the success of the Batman television show led to the creation of dozens of heroes of various repute, from Space Ghost all the way to Tod Holton, Super Green Beret.  Interestingly, the last few years of comic book madness have led to a situation very similar to those swingin’ days of yore, with superheroes invading TV screens, movies and even the mainstream pop culture in ways that we haven’t seen since Adam West, which begs today’s query…

The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) thinks this one will seem equally obvious to proponents of either side, asking: Are we actually in a new renaissance period of comics, or is it just the proverbial dead-cat bounce?

The various rumors swirling around Star Wars Episode VII seem to imply that the original actors will be playing versions of themselves that are, like the actors themselves, 30 years down the line from the Battle Of Endor.  I find myself enjoying that idea, wondering what a 70-year-old Han Solo might be up to, or what kind of fighting techniques would be most appropriate for 62-year-old Luke Skywalker, legendary balancer of The Force.  There are problems with that sort of story-telling (notably seen in the recent 50th Anniversary Doctor Who special, wherein an elderly Tom Baker made an appearance, while the other retirement-age Doctors probably wouldn’t have fit the story being told), but for every negative, there’s a bright side.  The “twenty minutes into the future” setting of Marvel’s Spider-Girl series gave us a fiftyish Peter Parker, having given up his mantle to teenage daughter May, and tried to show us the realistic consequences of Spider-Man’s heroic life.  What might Batman comics be like if Bruce Wayne had aged realistically from his first appearance in 1939?  Thereupon hangs today’s query…

The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) sees what’s become of me, when I look around at my possibilities, asking: What story would you most like to see taking place in “real time” and why?

Growing up in the 1970s, hardly a week went by without encountering an episode of ‘Gilligan’s Island’ on one of the eleven channels that my elderly Quasar could drag out of the Cable TV ether.  As an adult, I recognize the archetypical power of Sherwood Schwartz’ vision, even finding parallels between the castaways of the SS Minnow and the classic stock characters of Commedia Dell’Arte.  But all that high-falutin’ falderal (Doo dah!  Doo dah!) is thrown by the wayside at the appearance of young Mary Ann Summers, the fresh-faced farm girl who stole my heart.  The quintessential Girl Next Door, she was one of my earliest crushes, alongside Samantha’s evil double Serena (who is an entirely different kettle of fish.)  Able to catch a fish, sing a torch song, and put even the overly-educated Professor in his place as necessary, Mary Ann raises today’s pointed query…

The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) always had a slight crush on Silver Age Lightning Lass, if it helps, asking: Who’s your favorite example of the “Girl/Boy Next” door archetype in pop culture?

Last evening, my daughter insisted that we had to watch ‘Despicable Me 2′, regardless of whether or not Daddy had any patience left after double-shifting holidays, flagrantly ignoring the stack of recorded television already on the DVR.  Still, when it comes to the Widget, I seldom argue too hard, as her instincts are pretty spot-on about stuff we’ll both like.  Still, given the choice, I’d join the legions of whiny know-it-alls who want to know why we don’t have a sequel to ‘The Incredibles’ yet, or perhaps start my own legion of people who think we should revisit Swan and the Warriors after their harrowing journey across New York City.  Sure, ‘A Christmas Story 2′ was a bad idea, but ‘Rambo’ is arguably a more enjoyable movie than ‘First Blood’, and the Friday the 13th Franchise doesn’t really get rolling until the third installment, which begs our sequelicious query for today…

The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) is still waiting to see what happened on the other side of ‘The Black Hole,’ asking: What movie/book/comic/modern-art-performance-piece-with-robots-finding-love/what-have you do you find most deserving of a sequel?

Given the post-holiday scheduling (sorry for those outside of the US and/or not celebrating Thanksgivvukah), I am having issues getting back into regular gear.  Switching from nights to days has only exacerbated the issue, which left me wide awake at 1 am, knowing I had to work again at 8.  Luckily, my old friend Stevie King came through with a couple of short stories to downshift my brain into sleep gear.  Ever since I found a copy of ‘Night Shift’ in my grandmother’s library as a child, a little King always helps me decompress, which in turn begs a query…

The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) reminds you of Frankie’s prophetic advice (and not the one about tribes in conflict), asking: What’s the most relaxing bit of pop culture goodness in your world?

You know the drill, yadda yadda, holiday in the States, blahbidiblooblah hippity hooplah!  (Quoting Eminem is one of my guilty pleasures.)  Nearly 20 years ago, I had just met the woman who would become my wife and impulsively went to her family’s Thanksgiving dinner celebration, at which my future-mother-in-law asked each of us to speak about what we were most thankful for.  Being a twenty-something ironic goofball (there weren’t hipsters yet, and I wasn’t ever alternative enough to be a grunge guy) I wasn’t really sure how to respond to that question.  These days, it’s still a toughie.  Seems like there’s always something that needs to be immediately addressed, be it scheduling three different jobs, making sure the lights stay on, or just monitoring short people’s blood glucose levels, to where such self-analysis doesn’t make itself a priority.  Still, since this is American Thanksgiving (celebrating the time that two mice made a cat surrender half of his turkey and giblets through the clever use of physics and tiny paper hats) it seems like a day to consider that very query…

The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) figures that, every once in a while, it’s perfectly acceptable to embrace a cliché here and there, asking: What are you most thankful for (pop culture or otherwise) in 2013?