Gird your loins, everyone, because with Thor opening this weekend, the long summer slog of superhero movies is upon us. Some of them are so good, but some of them are so damn crappy. That's why I've devised a simple formula to figure out which is which.

The recent spike in comics franchises and other superhero entertainment could soon take an especially fabulous turn if Perry Moore gets his way. The novelist and Chronicles of Narnia co-producer (pictured) blabbed to Vulture this week about negotiations to adapt his young adult novel Hero — about Thom Creed, "the world's first gay superhero" — for TV; Moore expects a deal with one of two unnamed networks any day now, but he isn't waiting around to affirm its credibility among gays, fanboys, gay fanboys, executives and myriad other demographic permutations:

Gosh, Marvel Studios, just take a minute to chew your food, would you? Less than 24 hours after its debut picture Iron Man finished a $100 million opening weekend, studio boss David Maisel was all over town announcing Marvel's forthcoming slate — through 2011. As we noted yesterday, an Iron Man sequel is naturally to follow on April 30, 2010, while an adaptation of Thor will drop that same summer on June 10. It gets fairly outrageous from there: The First Avenger: Captain America appears May 11, 2011, followed by The Avengers — combining Iron Man, Captain America, The Incredible Hulk and Thor a mere two months later. (The studio says its sitting out 2009 as a result of a development lag left over from the writers strike.)