puberty is a heartbreaking experience. Watching his transformation into something more is extraordinary.

NEO

The hero for the digital generation, the film embodiment of all things computer and cool, Neo, as played by Keanu Reeves in the Matrix films is a cool-headed hacker with an innate gift: he is the One, the singular person who can manipulate the digital dreamworld that he and all his peers must live in. Neo's strength comes not just from his abilities, but from his belief that freedom is the most important thing: freedom to love, freedom to live, freedom to choose your own destiny - even if that destiny is to save the human race.

MING THE MERCILESS

Ming the Merciless was the evil galactic despot who came to conquer the earth and the known universe in the Flash Gordon comic strip. First appearing in 1934, Ming represented everything evil and, well, merciless, in a villain. He was cruel and barbaric, not just to enemies, but allies, and even his own daughter, manipulating anyone and everyone for whichever ends suited his purposes. The ultimate Genghis Khan or Adolph Hitler, Ming gave us our first taste of a galactic emperor, and all the evil and peril that brought.

HAL 9000

HAL was the reluctant antagonist of Arthur C. Clarke's classic novel 2001: A Space Odyssey. He was also one of the very first well-portrayed examples of man's technological reach extending beyond his grasp. As later films, like The Terminator would explore more thoroughly, HAL represented man's creation turning on him. Unlike Frankenstein's monster, though, HAL was not an unintentional killer. And even more frightening: he controlled the spaceship astronaut Dave Bowman and crew flew in. At his whim, life ended for everyone except Dave, who managed at the last minute to shut the errant computer down.

PAUL ATREIDES

Frank Herbert's epic series Dune begins with Paul Atreides, the heir of a noble family in a galactic empire wrought with political intrigue, religious manipulations, vastly complicated geological and economic models, and concept of prescience: the ability to predict all paths of the future, and hopefully choose the right path. Both abruptly and reluctantly, Paul is thrown into the role of prophet, hero, savior, and then emperor. The final step is godhood, a step he refuses to take, a step his son later does take. Once voted the greatest science fiction or fantasy series of all time, Dune owes most of its original success to the young man bred to be a messiah, who became even more.

BIG BROTHER

George Orwell's 1984 painted a bleak and dismal portrait of the future, where the government watched and controlled its citizenry more strenuously than most prisons would today. Using Thought Police, they allowed for no dissension, or even creative thought, of any kind. Written nearly 40 years before 1984, Orwell got most of it wrong, but his paranoid fear of government, and the overshadowing ability of them to control everything sparked something within all of us. We know this is possible, and we are always on the lookout.

THE ALIEN

Sometimes you don't need good dialogue to have a great villain. Sometimes you don't need to speak at all. The alien in the 1978 film Alien is perhaps the scariest, evilest creature ever to stalk the big screen, in part because it never said a word. Just a hiss, and then WAMMO! The design of the creature was everything. From sets of jaws and teeth within teeth, to the face-hugging embryo, whatever planet conspired to evolve this creature managed to create the ultimate expression of malice and raw animal cunning.

Learn more about this author, David Clary.
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