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One of the best comic books I've seen lately is on television.

"Heroes" debuted on NBC Sept. 25, and should be pretty familiar turf to fans of superheroes and related genres. It's an ensemble story about a number of ordinary people suddenly gaining extraordinary abilities, and how they deal with them.

Which sounds like a number of familiar comic-book properties, such as X-Men, or J. Michael Straczynski's "Rising Stars" or even Marvel's "New Universe." But creator, producer and writer Tim Kring ("Crossing Jordan") says in interviews in "Starlog" and "Comics Buyer's Guide" that he went out of his way to avoid making it a genre show - so don't expect to see any Spandex or Batcaves or crime-fighting. He says it's about the characters, not the super-powers (and so far, it really is).

But there are super-powers. And even though Kring consulted with (and hired) popular comics writer Jeph Loeb (who has also worked on TV shows like "Lost" and "Smallville"), he said it was nearly impossible to come up with powers that haven't "been done 50 times over, by many different people, many different ways (Starlog No. 349)."

How does "Heroes" compare to comics? Let's take a look at the main characters:

- Claire Bennet (played by Hayden Panettiere): A high-school cheerleader from Odessa, Texas, Claire can heal from any injury. Not that she likes it; being a 16-year-old girl, the last thing she wants is to be different.

In the comics: Claire is usually described as "indestructible" or "invincible," but she isn't invulnerable like Superman. Actually, her power is closer to Wolverine's healing factor.

- Isaac Mendez (Santiago Cabrera): New York artist Isaac can paint the future - but only when he's high on heroin. How sucky is that for a power? And his paintings (actually created by comic-book artist Tim Sale) predict a deadly future that it's hoped our "Heroes" can prevent . . . if anyone will take the ravings of a junkie seriously.

In the comics: Larry Trask (X-Men) and Madame Web (Spider-Man), among others, can see the future in bits and pieces.

- Hiro Nakamura (Masi Oka): An office drone from Osaka, Japan, Hiro (yes, pronounced "hero") is a comic-book-reading and Star Trek-quoting geek who instantly embraces his powers - and intuitively understands the comic-book science behind them. (At last: Being a nerd pays off!) Hiro can manipulate the time/space continuum, which means that he can, among other things, freeze time and teleport through both time and space. Added bonus for comic-book fans: Hiro discovers a comic book (by "Isaac Mendez," but probably also by Sale) that shows his future adventures - and which keeps changing as Hiro changes his present.

In the comics: Time travel has long been a staple in the superhero set, from Superman to the Legion of Super-Heroes at DC Comics, and teleporters are fairly common, too, like X-Men's Nightcrawler and Vanisher.

- Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg): A Los Angeles policeman who can read minds, Parkman gets in trouble for knowing a little too much about various crimes.

In the comics: Telepaths are thick on the ground, including Professor Xavier (X-Men), Martian Manhunter (Justice League) and Saturn Girl (Legion of Super-Heroes).

- Nathan Petrelli (Adrian Pasdar): A selfish politician, Petrelli can apparently fly but wants to keep it buried to win his election.

In the comics: A list of flyers would fill the column, but we'll mention Superman, Hawkman and Green Lantern of the Justice League and Angel and Storm of the X-Men, since they've appeared in movies or cartoons.

- Peter Petrelli (Milo Ventimiglia): Nathan's brother, who appears to have the power to ape other people's powers when in proximity to them.

In the comics: Mimic and Rogue of the X-Men, Amazo (Justice League villain), Super-Adaptoid (Avengers villain).

- Niki Sanders (Ali Larter): A single mom who puts her kid through private school by stripping on the Internet and borrowing from the wrong people, Niki seems to have a murderous doppelganger in the mirror who replaces her in times of danger, with fatal results for the bad guys. How this works exactly - and whether Niki and her secret sharer are one person or two - is unclear.

In the comics: In DC's "Rose & Thorn," gentle Rose Forrest had a split personality, becoming the violent Thorn in times of stress. DC's Enchantress had an almost identical schizophrenia. And speaking of people you don't want to see angry, how about the incredible Hulk?

Meanwhile, www.NBC.com offers actual online comic-book stories that flesh out the main characters, written and drawn by professional comics folks from Aspen Productions. Which begs the question: Will Hiro's "9th Wonders" comic book in the show ever make it to print?

"We're definitely talking about it," Kring told the comic book Web site Pulse (www.comicon.com/pulse). "We're surrounded by lots of comic-book guys, between Tim Sale, Michael Turner, Jeph and Jim Lee. I can't imagine we won't be able to generate some 'real' comic book out of this. It seems not only inevitable, but obligatory that we do it."

As if the show wasn't enough!