I resisted the urge to watch Heroes at first, having written it off as an apparent cheapjack knockoff of Stracznyski's (awesome) Rising Stars. After hearing from enough trusted friends that I was being pigheaded and should check it out though, I started tuning in to the repeats on the Sci-Fi channel when they began airing the season from the top.

While I wouldn't necessarily call Heroes great tv (and just so you know where I'm coming from, The Wire qualifies as truly great tv in my book), it's certainly highly entertaining and, yes, even original in its way. There are undeniable debts owed to its comic book forebears (for starters, the aforementioned Rising Stars, but also Days of Future Past to a rather significant extent), but at the end of the day, it's a show about seemingly ordinary people who discover they possess superpowers, so how could there not be such influences? As well, while creator Tim Kring isn't a comics guy, the key involvement of certified comics superstars in writer Jeph Loeb and artist Tim Sale should speak volumes. If you're a staunch comics fan who's resisting the charms of Heroes, you should know that Loeb and Sale are both major players in the creation of the show, and if that doesn't convince you that it's worth checking out, I don't know what will. (Maybe the fact that Kevin Smith has signed on to write and direct the first episode of the tie-in Origins mini-series that will air early next year?)

In the meantime, for those who are already on board (and have seen the season one finale), after the jump is a first look at season two, which kicks off September 24:

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