I have fascinating ideas about Rankin-Bass.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is the quintessential Marvel Comics superhero, because his greatest weakness is also his greatest strength.

I'm hardly the first to say this, but the single innovation that separates Stan Lee and Jack Kirby from everybody else is that they were the first to explore the pain of exceptionalism in comic books. Now it has become a trope and is verging on trite, but back in the 1960's it was revolutionary.

The X-Men are the most pure expression of this phenomenon. They are sworn to protect a world that fears and hates them, and this fear and hate is because of the very powers that make the X-Men capable of protecting the world. It is a sinister loop that has more in common with La Jetée than with the triumphal universalism of Superman. (Note: I have no idea what that sentence means).

Rudolph fits this model exactly. Indeed, in the bright and cheerful utopia of the North Pole, the brutality and racism the other reindeers (and even Santa!) exhibit toward Rudolph is even more jarring than the generalized condemnation felt by the X-Men. Sentinels are less out of place in New York than the exclusionary Reindeer Games are out of place in Santa's castle.

Next year, I will discuss why Hermey is actually a Skrull agent.

I have fascinating ideas about Doug Ramsey.

Doug Ramsey was one of the original New Mutants, with the code name of Cypher. He was an innate master of languages, which meant he could translate stuff. This wasn't very useful in a fight, and in the comics, his power was mostly used to justify him being a 133t hax0r -- the theory being that least computers were cool. He used to sit around and bemoan his fate.

Cypher is now dead, and he is generally remembered as having the lamest mutant power ever conceived by the geniuses at Marvel comics.

This is all wrong.

Cypher's power makes him arguably one of the coolest and most powerful people on the planet. After all, from early on it was established in canon that his mastery of languages included all forms of communication -- verbal and nonverbal. Human beings give off thousands of unconscious signals all the time: body language ranging from posture to eye dilation, choice of diction and inflection, and just plain flop sweat. Cypher's power gives him the ability to instantly and accurately read all of these signals.

What would this mean in the hands of a creative writer? Well:

• He is a perfect lie detector.

• He is the ultimate poker player.

• He is the ideal politician. In any political negotiation, he automatically knows where you stand, who you represent, and what you want to hide. In any political interaction, he knows exactly how you are reacting to what he is saying, and can change his behavior accordingly.

• He is an unstoppable businessman. He will win any negotiation. As soon as he sits across a table from you, he knows exactly what your bottom line really is -- and exactly what you want him to think your bottom line really is.

• He is the greatest lover in history. Every shudder he interprets perfectly. Every gasp is perfectly judged in how it relates to pressure, friction, and duration. Based on eye dilation and heart rate he knows if he should go faster or slower, wetter or dryer, looser or tighter.

This is the character that turned into a techno-organic cyborg and eventually killed off because he was too boring!