It’s about to get very, very geeky in here, readers. You may want to go and do something else for a while, like live fulfilling lives or something. I’ll think no less of you for it.

You know what I’d like to see? A superhero television series. “Aha,” you defiantly pipe up, “what about Heroes, then, Stu? What’s that, a bucket of porridge?” To which I reply with a vicious backhand and remind you never to interrupt me when I’m speaking. For the sake of argument, let’s set aside Heroes for a bit, okay? That show is a soap opera that happens to feature guys who can fly. It was an admirable idea, but it’s run out of steam now and needs to stop. Also, it’s creator is a talentless hack who calls fans of the show “dipshits” and saps”. So fuck Heroes.

In fact, it’s sort of the problem. The central conceit is basically “like the X-Men, but in the Real World.” Which is sort of retarded by itself because the X-Men movies already tried pretty hard to show everyone how “real” it was. This consisted of everyone wearing heavy leather into a battle situation.

It wasn’t that crazy back in the day. Batman, Superman, Captain America and so on all had serialised stories back in the 40s, and the Hulk TV show remains one of the most enduring incarnations of the character. Why then have we gone back to the idea that superheroes can only appear on the big screen? Sure it gives them a bigger pallette to work in, but it severely limits what stories you can tell.

Here’s what I’d like. A superhero series which features a number of characters, powered and non-powered, starting at the beginning of their careers and working forward. You could do this with an established universe or throw caution to the wind and invent your own characters and mythology. Imagine a series which took the time to properly explore the Marvel universe and all it’s myriad superheroes and supervillains. You start with the Fantastic Four, bring in Spiderman and the X-men, add Iron Man, Thor and the Hulk, find Captain America frozen in his block of ice. Meanwhile the overall story arc is the rumour of a major threat arriving, culminating in the arrival of the Silver Surfer and, hot on his heels, Galactus. That’s the first season.

Second season you introduce some more x-men, maybe throw in some other guys like Luke Cage and Iron Fist, The Avengers become really active with members like The Wasp, Ant Man and Hawkeye joining the ranks. Have the overall story arc be some major bad guy like Magneto or Dr Doom planning to take over the world, culminating in a massive superhero brawl in the final episodes.

Then, third series, you do the Secret Wars, and also follow the exploits of the heroes and villains left behind in the power vacuum back on earth.

Fourth series could, I don’t know, the Phoenix saga? At this point you can basically hop onto anything and weave it in. The point is with enough foresight and planning you could totally pull it off. Or, you could use that planning to create a whole new universe populated by characters we’ve never seen before, a whole new universe to explore.

What’s great about TV is it’s ability to flesh out plots and characters. A movie is great for spectacle and a talented writer can also wring a hell of a lot of character development out of even the pulpiest of superheroes, but it’s still limited to the classic three-act structure. A TV series can focus on single characters, it can take the time to develop complex interelationships between them, and it can string out a complicated and multi-layered plot in a satisfying way because it’s got the room to move.

Chief among my wishes for any TV show however is the notion that it has to be Superheroes, with all that entails. I want to see gaudy costumes. I want to see capes. I want to see green men and men who can endlessly stretch their bodies, and women who can grow to enormous size. I want to see this explained away with the tiniest bit of pseudoscience. In his mythology, Superman wears a brightly coloured costumne so he can hide in plain sight. I’m convinced that superheroes in general need to as well. You have to have a level of unbelievability about your characters, so you can actually believe in them. This is where Heroes falls down. It wants so badly to be set in The Real World, but we know that in the real world people like that just don’t exist. We’re already straining our suspension of disbelief muscles trying to put these people in a “real” context. If they’re wearing brightly coloured spandex and leaping tall buildings, our brain says “ah, superheroes” and goes to sleep.

Of course, when I say I want them to look like superheroes, I don’t mean I want them to look ridiculous, I mean, there’s no helping some characters, but recent movies (ironically) have shown that you can have someone look pretty much exactly as they do in the comics and not look like a refugee from a very specific fetish party.

Of course, to completely smash the dream to atoms, such a tv series would probably be the most expensive ever made, with each episode having the budget of a small blockbuster. Also, a limited amount of people would actually watch it. So I’m going to have to file it under “things to do when I win the lottery”. This will have to jostle for funds with “bring Firefly back”, “fill a huge money bin with dollar coins and swim in them like Scrooge McDuck” and “finally get rid of this third nipple” but I’m sure if I budget I can squeeze it in.