Judging by the interminable lists of product update releases to be found at various Mac-centric news sites around the 'net, it looks like we're facing yet another drama lull. What, no more high-profile testosterone-drenched posturing between IDG World Expo and Uncle Steve's Boston-bashing minions? Well, we should've known it was too good to last. So until someone slips some steroids into Charlie Greco's morning Wheaties and he publicly announces that if Steve Jobs sets foot within a hundred feet of the Moscone Center this January he'll personally turn the Mercurial One's liver into a stylish winter hat complete with ear flaps, well, we're going to have to resort to telling you about SuperDrive kryptonite.

Don't get too excited; it's not nearly as thrilling as it sounds. It's just that, some time ago, Pioneer Electronics announced that several models of its DVD-recording drives (including the DVR-A03 and DVR-A04 that were used as SuperDrives in Apple iMacs and Power Macs) contain a firmware bug that has a few "issues" with the new high-speed 4x DVD-R and 2x DVD-RW media that are supposed to ship later this year-- to wit, if you try to use said high-speed media in an affected SuperDrive, you "may cause damage to both the loaded disc and to the drive/recorder." Zoinks! Imagine burning your iMovie magnum opus of little Johnny's sixth birthday party to a 4x disc to send to Grandma and watching sticky black smoke issue forth from the frosty white domed base of your iMac. (Okay, so maybe it is a little thrilling.)

So if you're looking to slap 4x DVD-R media into your SuperDrive, put simply, don't. At least, not until you've read what Apple has to say on the subject, checked via System Profiler whether your SuperDrive may be one of the buggy batch, and then applied the firmware update that makes your drive impervious to the nastier effects of the Evil Media™. And even after you've done all that, still don't; while the firmware update will prevent 4x DVD-R discs from reducing your beloved SuperDrive to a twisted lump of smoking plastic, it will make your 2x drive burn to 4x media at... 1x. In other words, post-firmware update, SuperDrive kryptonite won't kill, but it'll still weaken. (Think Krimson instead of green.) Stick to 2x media for the best results.

Oh, and about that magical firmware update: so far, it seems that Apple has only posted one for the iMac and Mac OS X. If you're still using Mac OS 9 on your iMac, or if you've got an affected SuperDrive-equipped Power Mac instead (like us), you're going to have to wait; Apple promises that other updates will be "posted shortly." In the meantime, we recommend stationing armed guards in front of your SuperDrive twenty-four hours a day just to make absolutely sure that Lex Luthor doesn't sneak in and expose your system to 4x media. (On second thought, that's just silly. As if mere armed guards could stop an evil genius like Lex...)