For as long as I can remember I have been using the term “Superhero” when speaking about a goody comic book character and in that time I have never really thought to myself ‘What defines a Superhero?’.

With the question ‘What defines a Superhero?, what I am asking is what makes a Superhero different from just a hero and what defines them, especially in the comic book world, what makes a Superhero different from all the others in a costume with a secret identity?

Here are entries for Superhero from the first two dictionaries I checked online.

Superhero:

“A fictional hero having extraordinary or superhuman powers; also: an exceptionally skilful or successful person”

And

“A benevolent fictional character with superhuman powers, such as Superman”

This doesn’t really give me enough to answer the question and is where I start to get confused. For instance when we talk about guys in the mould of Ghost Rider and The Punisher who are quite happy to kill for the great of good are they Superheroes? And what about like Magneto and people like him because when he turned all good and joined the X-Men team do we now call him a superhero even though he has killed so many people in the past because he WAS a Supervillain but then turned good?

I have been thinking about the question now for five days or so because I wrote the above last week before work got a hold of me.

I have managed (I think) to define what I would class as a ‘Superhero’, It may not be the ‘official’ view of what a Superhero is and I would highly imagine the definition of Superhero differs from each person to the next but here is what I broke mine into and what from now on I will use it to define a Superhero.

The first thing to take into account is that Superheroes don't necessarily have to have superpowers. Batman, Green Arrow, Nightwing to name just three don’t have superpowers, yes the all have amazing talents but no ‘actual’ superpowers and yet I would class all three as Superhero’s.

People like Punisher, Ghost Rider, and Magneto like I mentioned before do not in my eyes class as a Superhero because there are a few rules one has to have to get ‘Super’ added to that Hero part in my eyes.

The rules I am talking about are not many but I believe needed to define and help separate the Superhero from the hero.

First up and MOST importantly is the moral code and what they live by, when out fighting crime and doing the greater good, which options do they chose?
Sometimes the most honourable or heroes may have to be non heroic and walk away, they may have to chose an option they don’t want too and don’t like but for them It’s about doing the right thing no matter how much vengeance or revenge is there, no matter who it is every life is equal.

Second and last rule is that they have to have either a superpower or a special talent and use it to fight a good fight, use the power/talent to try and make earth and which ever other planets they are on a better place. Fight for Truth, Justice and Honour.

I could go on and define each of my two rules more but the article is getting on a bit and we all know I can waffle so ill stop it there.

I will finish by saying the list of people I used to call a superhero has about halved.

Regards

Muldwych

The misses and I took our kids to a Halloween party on Saturday where I got my picture taken with a pregnant Batman (see image, that's me on the left).

This image led on to a conversation at work today which I found quite fascinating and led me to a few questions which I thought I would share as an article with you.

My work colleague said after seeing the picture “Well it can’t really be Batman as they are pregnant and Bruce Wayne being a guy is not going to fall pregnant is he?”

I could see where they were coming from BUT I then felt compelled to start explaining the multiverse concept to them whilst simultaneously explaining Flashpoint too.

I was explaining that in flashpoint ‘The Flash (Barry Allen)’ in his attempt at saving his mother's life went back in time to stop the killer which in avertedly alters the entire course of history in the DC Universe, it changes Batman to become Thomas Wayne and not his son Bruce, it also changes The Joker to become Martha Wayne and not the guy we have known for so long, not to mention what happens to everyone else in the DC Universe like Kal-El, Aquaman, Hal and Wonder Woman to name just a few whose lives were altered by Flashpoint.

Take this into account with the multiverse (or meta-universe, metaverse) which is the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes (including the historical universe we consistently experience and mainly read about in the DC comics) that together comprise everything that exists and can exist: the entirety of space, time, matter, and energy as well as the physical laws and constants that describe them, then I think that the possibility for a pregnant Batman is there or thereabout.

The DC Multiverse consists of numerous worlds, most of them outside DC's main continuity or the DC universe where our main DC hero’s live. The first time DC used this was way back in 1953 where Wonder Woman fell through a space-time warp and encountered her other self, so tell me why couldn’t a flashpoint type scenario have happened on one of the multiverse universes, its earth 1, 2, 3, or whatever???

NOW taking all this into account AND the fact there is already a guy who gave birth to children (Thomas Beatie), granted he used to be a woman but lives his life as a man and gave birth to the children as a man (if you haven’t seen before please check Google) this leaves me with a few questions.

Could a multiverse Batman who has gone through a Flashpoint event become pregnant?

Could Batman go though a possible transgender operation on a multiverse which turns him from a man into a female that can give birth?

Could this Flashpoint type event have altered Thomas and Martha’s pregnancy which in turn then makes Bruce Wayne a she who could then become a man and give birth?

Could multiverse Bat's get a woman's womb implanted into him to carry a child?

So many questions/theories my head may explode!!!!!!!!

Time for me to finish for the week but before I go I will tell you that YES!!!! This is the stuff that goes through my head on a daily basis, so if you ever speak to my misses please say well done as she has to put up with this type of conversations on a daily basis.

Regards

Muldwych

Vampires are shit now. No two ways about it, thanks to crap like Twilight and The Vampire Diaries, instead of the evil, sadistic, scary, blood-sucking fiends they should be, vampires are instead seen as whining emos, or sham-pires, who sparkle in the sunlight and want to love you, but can’t, so they’ll just complain about it for a while. The monster has been defanged.

Quite frankly, if Dracula, the most famous, and the greatest vampire who ever (un)lived met any of these modern pussy vampires, he’d cut their heads off for being an insult to monsters everywhere, doing each and every one of us a favour in the process.

I patiently await the day, and it has to come, when vampires are scary, evil bastards again. In the mean time, we have plenty of proper vampire stories from the past we can dive into which give us a superior breed of vampire, and many of the best of them feature Dracula.

Dracula isn’t just the best vampire ever, but he’s also one of the greatest, and most well known, figures of popular culture. He’s appeared everywhere, on screen, in print, on stage, on the radio and on, and on. There’s an almost endless list of other characters who have encountered Dracula, including King Arthur, Batman, the X-Men, Scooby Doo, Spider-Man, Buffy, Billy the Kid and, perhaps most bizarrely, Emmanuelle.

There have been so many incarnations of Dracula on the screen that it was all but impossible to whittle them down to five only. So you’re getting ten in what I refer to as a two-part Halloween Behind the Masks special! Aren’t you lucky? Aren’t I amazingly self-indulgent while Gav’s away? As with the last two weeks, on Frankenstein and his Creature, this isn’t so much a top ten, as a selection of ten Draculas worth checking out. The top three though, that’s definitely the three best Draculas ever, and in the right order. You’ll be seeing them on Monday, and anyone who disagrees with their ranking is a wrong person.

You lot voted for a number of different Draculas as your favourites, with the eventual result being a tie between Gary Oldman and Christopher Lee. As for those of you who voted for Gerard Butler (if you weren’t a woman voting for reasons of, as it was described to me, filth) and the hilarious individuals who went with Leslie Nielsen, you need to watch more Dracula films.

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So it started back in August, the 31st to be precise,
Some people were so hot for it and others cold as ice,
Some people saying that DC had destroyed and sold its soul,
For me comics is my music and DC my new rock and roll,

How can it be a bad thing with so many titles sold out?
The buzz it’s created for comics in the whole wide world throughout,
I don’t think that all are amazing but I still wouldn’t call them a waste,
I put it down to different people, who all have a different taste,

Ive stayed with all my favourites and have added new as well,
Would I call it a massive success? I suppose really only time can tell,
The Batman family comics in my pull list come to nine,
Of my 21 DC comic’s I call these lot here my spine,

All four Superman titles I am reading, so please add these to my list,
Green Lantern’s there, all of them too, because I couldn’t just resist,
I could go on but you get the gist about what this all means to me,
Quality writing and fantastic art on most you can guarantee,

Reservations, there were loads but I really shouldn’t have had a worry,
Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Barry Allan still rock and even now Arthur Curry,
To top that off, hot chicks there’s loads most showing lots of skin,
Ill admit I am getting suicide squad, but only to see Harley Quinn,

Two months in now I still feel the same and I am even getting two mini series,
The mystery woman who the hell is she? Ive now read so many theories,
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed as its time for me to conclude,
But one last thing I want to say FFS CATWOMAN WAS NOT TOO RUDE.

Alex Muldwych Giles

Since I’ve been writing this column, it’s been all about the male superheroes and villains. There have been pictures of actors such as James Marsters, Chris Hemsworth and Michael Rosenbaum for the ladies (and fellow Sidekick, Joe Glass) to swoon over. Many of the votes I’ve received from female fans for their favourite actors to play the characters I’ve covered have ended with words to the effect of “because he’s hot.” Sorry ladies, it’s true.

Well, this week, it’s the mens turn, as I turn Behind the Masks to possibly the sexiest lady to ever grace the printed page, and take a look at the actresses who have portrayed Catwoman.

This column was probably the toughest one for me to write yet. It turns out there have been a lot of great Catwomen over the years, and there are some shocking omissions from this list. Those who know me well enough will be surprised at the absence of Eliza Dushku, but with Batman: Year One not having been released yet, I couldn’t really include her by my own rules. Gina Gershon’s turn in The Batman was out of the running fairly early on, but it was only as I started actually writing that I dropped Eartha Kitt from the list. Likewise, the top five itself kept on changing, with my top two constantly swapping positions, even halfway through writing the entry for them, as did my three and four. Obviously, Halle Berry’s awful, awful version did not make the cut.

The votes for your favourite Catwoman were also close, which wasn’t much help for me, but in the end Michelle Pfeiffer just (by one vote) edged out Julie Newmar for the top spot, with one vote telling me that “Michelle Pfeiffer is how you spell M’rowr”. So, who tops my list?

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Secret Identity:

“A secret identity is an element of fiction wherein a character develops a separate persona (usually adopting a pseudonym), while keeping their true identity hidden. The character also may wear a disguise (ranging from makeup or a mask, to a complete costume). A character may have several types of secret identities simultaneously (such as adopted names, pen names, undercover identities, and crime fighting codenames).”

Now one of my BIGGEST gripes when I was younger was about superheroes identities and why no one noticed that the likes of Clark Kent was Superman and that Bruce Wayne was Batman.

Now that I have thought about it a bit more for this article I now accept it and feel I can understand why they get away with it.

Obviously, first and foremost, it comes down to suspension of belief and if you are reading a comic or watching a superhero film then you like to escape to a fantasy realm and believe that for instance some humans can defy the rules of gravity and nature or that aliens can come down to earth to help protect it by using superpowers.

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So today's storm in the geeky teacup seems to be the new Catwoman comic. Its disgusting! Its pornographic! Its sexist! You know, the usual bullshit whenever a comic dares to come out with a female lead who doesn't look like a librarian. Well, like a stereotypical librarian. The one librarian I know is pretty foxy (hello Whittle).

So even though it wasn't on my must read list from DC's new 52 I picked this up and read it. Bit bad of me as a comic nerd I know... actually READING a comic before giving my opinion on it, but what the hell.

Lets go through the main complaints I've seen online. Gotta spoil a bit to explain, but before we do, lets get one thing straight. Im not some sad bastard wanking off over drawings. That said I see nothing wrong with a bit of T&A in comics. You ever read the original Rocketeer comics? There's some STUNNING art in there that looks like it should be on the side of a World War 2 Bomber plane. Same as I have no problem with Batman's six pack or The Flash basically being a naked Olympic swimmer sprayed red. Comic characters dont have to look like real people. If they do then you get Alex Ross books which for me lose a lot of the magic of comics. Give me stylised characters over photo real cosplayers any day. Anyway, lets get into it...

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The DC animation wagon of quality just keeps on trucking with the latest offering Batman: Year One, adapted from Frank Miller's seminal comic of the same name. Not long to wait now as it'll be released in the US 18th October.

Continue past the jump for the clip...

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With the recent reveal that Cable will be returning after 'dying' during X-Men event, Second Coming, we now have some more information about the direction that his return will take. It seems that Cable will be taking on The Avengers in an attempt to safeguard his 'daughter', Hope, and her future prosperity. With this mini-series being written by man of many lives, Jeph Loeb and drawn by fan favourite Ed McGuinness I pose the question; Is Cable the new RULK?

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Choosing which comics to have in your pull list can be a strenuous thing given the sheer amount of comic books released on a weekly basis and coupled with the price means you can pretty much bankrupt yourself if you are not careful.

From discussions on the interweb and in forums its clear to be seen that very few people can get every comic they want which leaves us all with the age old comic book collector question, to pull or not to pull?

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