#i used to own a lot of old physical comics. mostly green lantern

[dormiloncito]

just remembered watchmen

[dorizardthewizard]

Misconception: Hal Jordan is an idiot

Okay this might be part of a series of Green Lantern posts I’ve been writing when bored, because hey you read some youtube comments and suddenly you’re an essay writer. It’s just gonna be me rambling about Hal’s character lol

So we’ve all made dumbass jokes, me included, but honestly? Hal’s not stupid, he can’t be. It takes a lot to be a test pilot, including a degree in the engineering/physics field, and most likely military service. He wouldn’t have gotten as far as he did if he wasn’t smart enough.

It might not always seem that way though, but that’s because he excels in thinking on the fly, which is so important when you’re dealing with intergalactic crises springing up every Tuesday. He’s the guy who will jump right into danger and trust that he can get himself out afterwards. We’ve seen him think his way out of tricky situations before, even if in his own crazy style like jumping out of a plane to recharge his ring from the head of a Manhunter. In some circles he’s kind of gotten the reputation of being the lame one in the Justice League, which can’t possibly be true when he has a ton of amazing feats to him like defeating Sinestro multiple times, killing Krona despite the fact that a GL ring shouldn’t be able to kill a Guardian, controlling the death entity Nekron to defeat the reality-bending First Lantern, making a ring out of his own willpower… etc.

So if he isn’t actually an idiot, where did this reputation come from? The ring chooses according to willpower and technically, not being bright shouldn’t make anyone less worthy, but this trait has kind of been blown up over the years to the point where some people are getting “dumbass energy” mixed with “actual dumbass”. Going back to the silver age, Hal definitely had a clumsy streak – we’ve all laughed at the panels like him slipping over in the shower and knocking himself out. It was pretty endearing though, watching this walking disaster still manage to save the day.

I feel like some of that was lost in later comics as he grew up, and when Johns brought him back even later, he was more like the cool, cocky pilot type (although still a disaster in other areas lol). The thing is, because of his nature of jumping into danger it sometimes seems like he really can’t think for himself, but that’s not the case. It’s just his style to go in guns blazing, shining bright and attracting all the attention away from whoever’s he’s saving and onto him. It’s true that it doesn’t always work out as well as he hopes, and that makes for some fun stories, but other times his quick instincts are lifesaving.

It wasn’t until the New 52 where this really got blown up though – while the GL comics continued mostly the same as before, other characters got rebooted so we got a whole new Justice League dynamic. A lot of people unfamiliar with GL know his New 52 version through the animated movies, and booooy…. this guy is basically Guy Gardner but less lovable, more insufferable and way less competent.

Of course this isn’t just limited to him, a lot of the Justice League members seem to be caricatures of themselves in this movie but I feel like he’s gotten it the worst. The Batman Syndrome doesn’t help either, where everyone’s dumbed down and nerfed to make him look like the biggest BAMF on the League. You have a guy who literally works with aliens everyday but of course only Batman’s tech can identify an alien device as a bomb! There’s also the ring-stealing gimmick, which is stupid because a Green Lantern is always bound to their ring through concentration – to remove it they literally have to disengage their minds from it first. I don’t know, maybe there’s a retcon or something but it’s still dumb. He even does this to John Stewart in JL Dark – that’s crossing the line :’P

Of course you could say JL War was early days and he hadn’t been a GL that long, but it doesn’t get much better in the other films and it’s no excuse for crossing into annoying asshole territory. It’s a difficult balance to strike and boy can you tell when a writer only has surface-level knowledge of his character...

Yikes. Sure he can be a cocky flirt – so was Han Solo – but he was actually likable!!

Sadly this trend of making Hal more and more of a comic relief man-child outside of comics continues, you’ve got kids watching him in DC Superhero Girls thinking that’s the definitive take on him, and we’re not getting a new GL movie any time soon to really delve into the character, whether animated or live action. Thankfully the animated series portrays him in a more positive light (although maybe they went a bit too far in flattening out his flaws, but that’s a post for another time) but that got cancelled so :/ Again I’m not well-versed in New 52 and Rebirth comics outside of GL yet but I have seen snippets of Justice League comics where it seems like he’s grown more into his old self, my favourite being his Darkseid War tie-in, which I really hope to see animated someday. Speaking of movies, the 2011 one certainly didn’t do him any favours – I actually think Reynolds did okay as Hal but when people look back on it, all they see is the Deadpool guy.

Anyway this is kind of going off on a tangent but still, it’s sad seeing so many comments joking about him being dumb and incompetent and that they should have used another lantern instead (I agree we need more of the other lanterns but not because Hal sucks), just because bad writing made him a caricature of his worst traits. When this happens to characters like Batman, tons of fans complain and come to his defence by calling out the writing, yet for Hal many just assume this is how he always is. In a world where Aquaman is actually getting some love, I really hope we can get a good adaptation for Hal soon.

TLDR;

Me: Oh Hal you dumbass

Someone: Ikr he’s such an idiot and a jerk I hate him

Me:

Me: What the fuck did you just say

[maddhatterreviews]

So something kinda funny happened a while ago

I was completely unaware that DC Superhero Girls had started airing again. That wouldn’t be that much of an issue, except I also forgot that I set my DVR to record new episodes months ago. So imagine my surprise when I check the DVR and find five new episodes of Superhero girls just there. 

And I thought it would be fun to go over the episodes I saw, since there’s actually some good stuff in them. I doubt I’ll do this again anytime soon, but still. 

Tween Titans: This actually came out after I found the recorded episodes, but I figured I’d throw it in too. Mostly because I don’t actually have that much to say about it. Karen and Jess get a job babysitting Dick Grayson and the other Titans, but they are all around ten years old. There wasn’t anything particularly special about this episode. It was just kinda fun watching Bumblebee and Green Lantern having to deal with a bunch of superpowered kids. 

I will say the time line seems about right. Dick is usually a few years younger than Barbara, and the characters are specifically called tweens, so he has to be somewhere between ten and twelve years old. We also got to see Bruce Wayne first hand for the first time. It is kinda funny to continue to see two of the three members of the Trinity being assholes. Although, to be fair we’ve really only seen Superman through Supergirl’s eyes and she has a pretty strong bias against him. And it’s unsure how much of Bruce’s douche nature is all part of the “Bruce Wayne Act” he usually has going on.

And I have a distinct feeling this episode is a direct response to Teen Titans Go. While most fans of the Titans either actively hate Go or are generally ambivalent towards it. I kinda have a feeling Lauren Faust might be slightly resentful towards Teen Titans Go since Super Best Friends Forever basically got passed over for it. It’s just the fact that they used the most popular version of the Titans, which just happens to be the same lineup as Go. It could be coincidence, but considering the Titans act like hyper-active brats, a fairly common criticism of Go, it really seems like Lauren Faust is taking a dig at Teen Titans Go.

All about Zee: A girl from school nobody talks to or really acknowledges becomes obsessed with Zatanna and eventually takes both her physical appearance and powers. She figures out Zatanna’s other friends are the superhero girls and takes their powers and appearances as well, becoming a hodgepodge of them all. This is easily the weakest episode for me. I’ve seen this premise a bunch of times and it’s never not felt cringy as shit. 

It feels like this was the episode that really felt like it was pulling influence for MLP. People were saying Zatanna was a lot like Rarity, and Rarity’s main thing was generosity right? I don’t know, that’s just how it feels to me. 

I think it is kinda funny that the running joke of the villain of this episode is that no one knows who she is and they can’t remember her name because I can’t either. And I’m also not sure if she existed in the comics either. Maybe she’s a Zatanna villain, I don’t know, I haven’t read many of her books. I thought she was Cole for a minute, but as far as I know, the whole changing appearance thing isn’t something Cole can do. 

I don’t know, this just didn’t feel like this show’s best, you know?

Living the Nightmare: Another Zatanna focused episode, and a marked improvement over the last. The Girls are having a sleepover at Zatanna’s place and they start talking about nightmares, specifically how Zatanna doesn’t have nightmares because she doesn’t have any insecurities or anxieties that can manifest within her subconscious. So, of course the villain of the episode attacks the girls through their dreams. 

I initially thought the villain was going to be long standing Justice League villain Dr. Destiny, but turned out to be a relatively new Zatanna villain named Fuseli. A demon who feeds off of people’s nightmares. And since Zatanna doesn’t get nightmares, she has to enter her friend’s dreams to find the little bastard. 

I usually like episodes like this. It’s a good way to quite literally get into the heads of the protagonists. We don’t get a lot of insight into most of the girls unfortunately. Most of their nightmares are by and large inconsequential. Kara is afraid of cockroaches, Diana is (Inexplicably) afraid of teddy bears, and Babs is afraid of...sharks I think? Karen’s fear has a bit more substance since she’s afraid of public speaking, but that’s to be expected from a character whose main defining trait is being shy. 

The two interesting dreams are Jess’s and Zatanna’s. A common criticism of the portrayal of the characters was the omission of the anxiety and mental issues that were part of Jess’s backstory. In the comics, Jess was an agoraphobic who experienced an extremely traumatic event before having the powers of Power Ring, the evil Earth-3 Green Lantern that’s powered by fear instead of Will power, forced on her. Lauren Faust has openly stated that Jess had gotten over most of her issues before the series began, but this episode alludes to the idea that she hasn’t gotten over them completely. And this could set up for future episodes to further explore Jess’s issues in full context. This episode is about Zatanna after all. 

Speaking of, Zatanna’s claim that she doesn’t have any issues isn’t entirely true. I wouldn’t call it a running joke, but a recurring plot point in the series is that Zatanna’s magic isn’t the best. She usually comes through at the end of the day, but more often than not, Zatanna’s attempts to perform magic will backfire in some way. And after tricking Fuseli out of her friends’ dreams and into her own, It’s revealed that she did in fact have something she was scared of. Zatanna is actually afraid of her own full magical potential, and that if she didn’t have enough control she might hurt someone. The reason she doesn’t have any nightmares about it was because someone, most likely her father, magically suppressed them. 

This is also one of the few times so far that the show brought up and expounded upon a storyline that appeared earlier in the series. Abrakadabrapalooza showed that Zatanna’s powers first manifesting scared the absolute shit out of her. While she quickly accepted her magical powers, I have to assume it still really freaked her out considering she almost destroyed the Green Room she was in, and could have easily developed a complex as she was learning to control her powers. Zatara, seeing the toll the incident in the Green Room was having on his daughter, could have locked away her fears so she could have peace of mind while she trains to become a better sorceress. 

Of course Fuseli, being a nightmare demon, manifests Zatanna’s repressed fears and there’s a big showdown where Zatanna obviously wins. There’s some interesting implications about Zatanna having her fears suppressed; like what will happen to her now that her fears are out and she acknowledges them. This was a fun episode and it does a decent amount to develop Zatanna. 

Dinner for five: Not my favorite of the bunch but it is up there. Dinner for Five doesn’t do much to develop the characters and the only one of the main Girls in the episode is Barbara. It’s just a really fun episode with a lot of action, great interactions and good comedy. It also introduces Deathstroke into the show, which is genuinely surprising. 

The episode is about Babs meeting a new friend in school, Rose Wilson, whose father just happens to be Deathstroke. The fights between Babs and Deathstroke are one of the highlights of the episode. Superhero Girls has some above board animation, but it’s not what the show is known for. This isn’t exactly Avatar, Rise of the TMNT, or even the original Teen Titans. The fight scenes have always been less about choreography and more about Loony Tunes’ esque slapstick and visual humor. And the fights between Babs and Deathstroke are some of the best mediums between the comedic style of fighting this show is known for and more serious fight animation. 

What really surprised me about this episode is the just that Deathstroke was the villain and the show actually named him Deathstroke, kept him as an assassin, and outright claimed that he killed many people, and the entire reason he and Rose came to Mertopolis was to murder Jim Gordon. This is especially surprising considering the reason Deathstroke was named Slade in Teen Titans was because Cartoon Network wasn’t sure they could get away with a recurring villain being named Deathstroke the Terminator. So it’s just kinda funny that DC Superhero Girls did that even though it’s  aiming at the same, if not a slightly younger demographic than Teen Titans. 

The story is also a prime example of the beauty in simplicity. With a premise like “Babs makes friends with Deathstorke’s daughter” I would have figured there’d be some kind of third act twist where it turns out Rose is actually Deathstroke herself, or she takes up her Ravager identity and she and Deathstroke both fight Babs. But no. Rose is just a nice sweet girl that really likes Babs and her dad just happens to be an infamous assassin. She even knows he’s Deathstroke and walks in on him about to murder Babs. And she just scolds him for doing so, and kind of implies Deathstroke has tried to kill her friends before. 

Bottom line, this was a fun simple episode 

Retreat: This is another low point for me. It’s not as bad as All about Zee, but there isn’t much to say about it either. Even though I don’t have a problem with episodes just being fun and not having any relevance to the larger narrative or developing the characters, Retreat especially feels like filler. 

Jess drags Babs, Karen, Hal, and Garth into the woods for a camping trip, and springs on them that she also invited Pam. And Pam immediately freaks out when the others start using various tree parts to do stuff around the campset. Pam runs off into the woods and turns into Poison Ivy to raise a small army of plant monsters to straight up kill the others. As she does this, Babs tells Garth, Karen, and Hal a scary story about a witch of the woods, and of course Ivy’s plant monsters attack just as she finishes her story. 

The rest of the episode is just the heroes fighting off the plant monsters with various shenanigans happening as they try to survive, since Jess insisted that they put all their technology, including all of their weapons, in a bag tied to a tree. And It’s all pretty solid. I can’t think of anything overtly wrong with this episode, it just doesn’t really do anything all that special. It is still a little annoying that the running joke of Aqualad being useless is still going on. But at least they acknowledge that Garth is the only one of the heroes whose powers don’t come from an external source. He still gets taken out pretty easily, but at least they show he is one of the strongest characters in the show, even if he is still a joke. 

It is still funny that Jess is so adamant that she and Pam are friends, when Pam’s antipathy towards her and the other is clear as fucking day. While it is kinda ridiculous that the Superhero Girls and Supervillain Girls can’t seem to put two and two together and figure out who the other is (Especially since Babs put it together that Rose’s dad was Deathstroke pretty fuckin quick) I honestly hope this dynamic sticks around for as long as possible. Logic be damned. 

Ally Cat: This is easily, the best episode of the bunch. And it brings up something I’ve been waiting for since the first episode: Lex Luthor coming back as a villain. And holy shit, was it worth the wait. 

The episode begins with a news report showing Lex digging up Stonehenge to find the mythical Book of Eternity. An ancient tome that Zatanna claims is able to predict the future with perfect accuracy. Because no one in this universe, or at least none of the six main girls, knows that Lex is a massive asshole they’re not too worried about him having a Book that powerful. But Zatanna insists that no one should have that much power and actually suggest they steal the book from Lex. 

Most of the girls are apprehensive, but Babs is surprisingly on board with the idea, and is sure she could come up with a plan to sneak into Lexcorp. Unfortunately, Babs has to go out of town with her dad, and can’t help heist. (And I kinda love that Babs insists that they’re not stealing they’re pulling off a heist, like there’s some kind of difference) So the girls do the only other logical thing they can think of; find Catwoman and get her to plan the heist for them. 

It is a solid plan, and it’s kinda funny that Diana either doesn’t understand the concept of blackmail or is so righteous and good she doesn’t recognize that she and the other girls are doing it to get Catwoman to help them. Either way, Catwoman does come up with a fairly genius plan to get them into Lex’s vault. 

I have to admit I really love what this series does with Catwoman. Making Selina black is whatever, it’s not that big of a deal to be honest. But the fact that Summer Cree was directed to emulate the Eartha Kit version of Catwoman adds a lot to the performance. And it’s kinda great that they made Catwoman the brains of the Villain Girls. Catwoman’s always been clever, but this show almost seems to make her out to be almost, if not just as intelligent as Lex. 

Speaking of Lex, after they just barely manage to get into the elevator to take them to Lex’s vault (Catwoman’s plan almost immediately goes south because the Girls absolutely suck at being criminals) Lex confronts them in his vault, traps the girls, and reveals that Catwoman had actually been working with Lex the whole time. It does make the Girls almost fucking up the plan to get here even funnier in retrospect, since it’s clear Lex wanted them in the vault in the first place. He also reveals that he’s managed to capture the Invinci-Bros and even Superman. 

Lex explains that he read the Book of Eternity, and knew that the Superhero Girls were going to try and steal the book by asking Catwoman for help, so he just got to her first. He was able to predict everyone’s moves thanks to the book, which allowed him to effortlessly incapacitate everyone he’s confronted so far. He claims he needed every hero in the city out of the way so he could enact his master plan. The plan he decides to tell Catwoman, simply because he doesn’t think she can stop him and he’s about to send her out of the city anyway. 

Thanks to the Book of Eternity, Lex knows that a huge meteor is hurtling towards Earth that will utterly destroy Metropolis and possibly cause global ecological devastation. Lex plans to let the meteor hit, have millions of people die and come in as the big goddamn hero he wants everyone to see him as, and have his technology save the surviving citizenry and rebuild the city in his own image. 

This is why I think this series is so good. It’s dumb and goofy, but when it wants to get dark, Holy Shit! They do not pull any punches with this plot. Catwoman out right says that countless people will die if Lex does this; and Lex does not give a shit. Lex Luthor’s main defining character trait is being a megalomaniacal sociopath with little to no regard for human life. He’s obsessed with his own self-image and will destroy anyone or anything to make himself look better. And this episode encapsulates that perfectly 

The show doesn’t do anything too extreme, but this plan shows just how evil Lex can be simply by not sugar coating the death toll that will result from it. To the point even one of our recurring villains is utterly horrified by it. But he does seem to scare her off before she can do anything to try and stop him. Fortunately, like in the comics, Catwoman admits that while she’s a thief, she isn’t willing to let an entire city die just to save herself. She doubles back and releases the Superhero Girls so that they can save the city from the meteor. 

Catwoman finds Lex on a boat and tells him that after he hired her to trick the Girls, she took a look at the book herself and figured out what Lex’s plan was. So she tore out the page that said what she’d do after the Girls were captured and double crossed Lex. This is also completely in character for Lex. He is so smart that Lex will always underestimate whoever he’s dealing with, so it’s usually surprisingly easy to trick or outsmart him. Especially for someone as clever as Catwoman. 

Of course, Catwoman tries to take the Book of Eternity from Lex, but the Girls show up and get the book from her. And the episode ends with Catwoman robbing Lex blind, and showing that the male superheroes are still in Lex’s cages. 

This was another thirty minute long special, and probably one of the best so far. It did a great job of showcasing just how dangerous this version of Lex is, while still keeping him kid friendly. He was silly and danced around during his fight with the heroes, but he still planned on letting an entire city be destroyed just to make himself look good. It was also fun to see Catwoman’s more anti-heroic side coming out in this, since DC Superhero Girls has her set up as a pure villain. 

And that pretty much everything. This took a lot longer to write, and I will never try to review five episodes of a tv show again, but it was fun to get all my thoughts about this show out. A new episode came out while I was writing this, but I’m not gonna talk about that one this time. I just want to get this one done. Still, as simple as this show is, it continues to be a fun superhero cartoon that I hope will get more kids into DC’s heroes. 

[superman86to99]

Superman: The Man of Steel #26 (October 1993)

REIGN OF THE SUPERMEN! In this issue: Steel vs. the Cyborg... or, if you prefer, John Henry vs. the Machine. The Man in Black and the Man of Steel are still exploring the Cyborg Superman’s ginormous Engine City (formerly Coast City) when they hear a massive rumble -- looks like someone put the keys in the ignition, which is bad news for everyone on Earth. See, the Cyborg’s plan was to put several of these engines across the planet to turn the Earth into a knock-off Death Star, but his lackey Mongul betrayed him and decided to start the first engine before time. As a result, the whole planet will spin out of orbit and break itself apart due to, uh, physics and stuff.

Our heroes bump into Mongul as he’s making his escape, and he decides to stick around a little while longer to beat their asses. The Man in Black decides to fight Mongul to allow Steel to go into the engine itself and hopefully turn it off before it destroys the planet. Now, Mongul might be a planet-killing bastard, but at least he’s considerate enough to give the Man in Black and Steel a little moment to themselves before they separate. Aw.

“It’s you! The guy who looks exactly like the steel mask I’ve been looking at!”

So, Steel goes into the engine, but the thing is so massive and complex that he doesn’t know how to even start turning it off. Luckily, he gets some unexpected tech assistance from the Cyborg (well, some chunks of metal animated by the Cyborg’s mind) and his complete inability to STFU.

Steel basically just lets the Cyborg keep talking about how the engine works as they fight, then uses that information to formulate a sophisticated plan to shut the machine down. That plan is called “jam the Cyborg and himself into the gears and make the whole thing explode”.

It works! The Cyborg is still alive and he still has a giant, kryptonite-powered fortress in his power, but at least the planet won’t crumble anymore, so that’s something. Anyway, let’s check on how the Man in Black’s been doing against Mongul...

Uh-oh.

Character-Watch:

Superboy had his big character-defining moment a few weeks ago when he pushed himself to the limit to stop that missile, and now it’s Steel’s turn. If Superboy’s moment was about rising up to the occasion, Steel’s is more about using his engineer brain to outsmart the Cyborg. His best stories are the ones where he tackles impossible problems until he finally breaks them down (literally, with a hammer). What a cool character. Too bad he died in this issue and stuff.

Plotline-Watch:

Halfway through the issue we see Green Lantern Hal Jordan coming back to Earth from a mission in space and he’s like “And now to take a big sip of water and check on my beloved home town of Coast City...” Don Sparrow says: “Some rough news, to be sure, but Hal’s been a noble hero for so long, I know he’ll be able to handle the disappointment like the hero as he has been consistently been portrayed for all these decades…”

Don’t worry, we’ll see Hal go “down there” in Green Lantern #46 soon!

We also see Old Man Eradicator flying down on Engine City. It’s all coming together!

Supergirl, once again in her invisible form, tries to help the mostly powerless Man in Black against Mongul, but he showers her with a convenient oil pipe and takes her out of commission in two seconds. If I were the Man in Black, I’d ask for a refund on my Emergency Secret Weapon.

Jeb-Watch: Lois sees Jeb “Homewrecker” Friedman for the first time since he kissed her last month, and he tries to get her attention with a pretty shocking accusation: that she (*gasp*) loves Superman. Jeb expert Don Sparrow says: “I’m pretty famous for my hatred of Jeb in these pages, so I gotta love how hard Lois is ignoring him. Aside from dismissing his sexist jabs, his would-be haymaker about her loving Superman and not Clark is flat out ignored, and to my memory, never brought up again. Besides, if Clark is dead, as Jeb thinks he is, what would be wrong with Lois loving Superman? Stupid Jeb.” Suck it, Jeb.

And I’ll just let Don keep talking now. More after the jump!

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

This entire issue feels to me like it’s being backed with a guitar solo, and the cover is no exception: pure badassery, as Superman and the Man of Steel run from explosions like action movie stars.  The opening splash on page one doubles down on the badassery, with Superman wielding an Image-comics-scale firearm (and while Jon Bogdanove has never shown an inability to draw feet, the convenient smoke hiding them does also remind me of Rob Liefeld, so more Image homage). [Max: I think he covered the feet so we can’t see Steel using his jet boots to look taller than Superman, again.]

Then ANOTHER splash follows on page 2-3 where we see the scale of our heroes relative to the giant engine structure.

Mongul’s bearhug looks pretty painful on page 6, and page 7 gives us yet another variation on the great poster from the Cyborg Superman’s first appearance. [Max: Those shots of Cyborg inside the machines always give me Superman III PTSD.] I love the mixture of low-tech and high tech that Bogdanove uses to show us the alien Engine City.  Aside from wires and gears, we also get shapes that look very analog, like transistors and the like.  Also the Cyborg being shown coming to life through his structures is a real visual playground for the art team, with some of his forms looking like himself, and others looking downright monstrous.

Did I think we’d get to see an oiled up Supergirl when I opened this issue?  No, no I did not.

The beating Mongul lays on Superman is very painfully drawn, particularly that last left hook Superman takes. [Max: Why does this look so familiar? It could be that similar cover image with Bibbo punching Superman, but I have a feeling both things are homages to something else. Some Neal Adams thing maybe?]

Mongul’s power level has always been something of a mystery to me.  Alan Moore’s “For the Man Who Has Everything” put him on a par with Superman, right up there with Darkseid for power level.  But then when Superman fought him in the gladiatorial games on Warworld, Superman didn’t have much trouble beating him, even though he had been out of range of a yellow sun for a very long time and was therefore, again, only using a fraction of his regular power.

The sequence of Steel hammering away at the Cyborg is well done, and appropriately reminiscent of The Mechanical Monsters, from the old Fleischer Superman cartoons (a well that Bogdanove rightly revisits a lot!)

STRAY OBSERVATIONS:

This issue serves as a precursor to the Man of Steel comics from the early 2000s, where John Henry Irons served as an unofficial partner to Superman in Superman: The Man of Steel when it was being written by Mark Schultz (one of the more readable Superman titles of the mostly awful Joe Kelly-Joe Casey era).

Mongul’s done a lot of lousy things over the years, but it was downright decent of him to just flat out stand there and wait for Superman and Steel to have their bro moment before attacking the very-weakened Superman. [Max: Great minds, Don.]

This issue reads very choppily, as a lot of the transitions are jarringly abrupt.  From when Superman barely finishes his sentence when they come against Mongul, or later when we cut away from Jeb midsentence to the Cyborg, then jumping right to Steel in the engine room, it can be confusing as a reader.  Anyone else notice this?

Looks like Bog has skipped right past the Clint Eastwood of last week, and is taking the Eradicator right into R. Lee Ermey territory.

It’s fitting that in what amounts to the final issue of this being a Steel comic (until his own later series) that they finally raise the John Henry story, as the inspiration for Steel’s name.  In an industry with a reputation for underrepresenting people of colour, Simonson and Bogdanove’s Superman: the Man of Steel has consistently featured prominent African-American characters, and portrayed them with nuance and dignity rarely afforded in the mid-90s.

I would have liked to seen a little more acknowledgement from the Cyborg of just how much his plans are screwed up, but I suppose it’s all supposed to further demonstrate how insane he is.  One thing after another, his plans fail (Superboy survives, saves Metropolis, Warworld conversion fails, SUPERMAN IS ALIVE, Mongul betrays him, Green Lantern is coming to help, etc).  Now he’s saying “ah, it’s all cool, all that matters is my plan to kill Superman!” Except that he thought that Superman was dead when he hatched this whole plan! [Max: I guess they had to make it sound like there was still stuff on the line before the big climax... but yeah, that was weird. No one’s buying it, Hank.]

Aside from a few pages where they go ALL OUT (like the aforementioned Engine City spread), there’s a real dearth of backgrounds in this issue, with tons of figures on solid or blank backgrounds.

I’m glad we got a little update on Lois after Superman jetbooted away again, it was kind of her to assure them that this is indeed the real Clark who has returned.   Still, that conversation could have been a lot more awkward than it was.

FOOLS! The Man in Black is an impostor! My money’s on Bibbo now.

[rhetoricandlogic]

The Refrigerator Monologues by Catherynne M. Valente and Annie Wu

by Carrie S · Jun 25, 2017 at 3:00 am · 

GENRE: Science Fiction/Fantasy, Literary Fiction, Comic

Here are the main things you need to know about The Refrigerator Monologues: it is intense, painful, and triumphant. It is NOT a romance. Readers would benefit from some familiarity with common comic book tropes while reading. Also, it’s feminist as fuck.

The book derives its inspiration from the Women in Refrigerators website created by Gail Simone in 1999. Simone launched a conversation that is still going strong about the frequency with which female characters are killed, injured, raped, or otherwise brutalized in comics for no purpose other than to fuel a man’s story. The trope name comes from the unfortunate girlfriend of Kyle Raynor (the Green Lantern) who comes home one night to find his girlfriend murdered and her body stuffed in his refrigerator. This leads Kyle to finally fully assume his role as Green Lantern as he seek vengeance and then goes on fight other battles, now secure in his superhero role.

The monologues are kicked off by Paige Embry, who introduces the reader to Deadtown (the afterlife for comics characters) and some of the women who live there. Paige is clearly inspired by the character of Gwen Stacey (Peter Parker, AKA Spiderman’s, first girlfriend). Paige is, for lack of a better term, the president of the Hell Hath Club. This club consists of women who have died (sometimes permanently, sometimes temporarily) as a result of their association with male superheroes:

There’s a lot of us. We’re mostly very beautiful and very well read and very angry. We have seen some shit. Our numbers change-a few more this week, a few less next, depending on if anyone gets called up to the big game. You can’t keep your lunch date if some topside science jockey figures out how to make a zombie-you. We’re totally understanding about that kind of thing. She’ll be back. They always come back. Zombies never last, power sputters out, and clones don’t have the self-preservation God gave a toddler in a stove shop.

In subsequent chapters, different members of the Hell Hath Club tell their stories. Comic book fans will recognize characters inspired by, among others, Harley Quinn (Batman), Mera (Aquaman), Jean Grey/Phoenix/Dark Phoenix (X-Men), and Karen Page (Daredevil). The key word here is “inspired.” Each character has their own story distinct from any inspiration. This allows the author to explore themes that might not otherwise make sense. For example, to my knowledge Harley Quinn has never been killed off, but through the character loosely based on her the author can explore themes of emotional and physical abuse, manipulation, denial, and obsession.

In theory, anyone should be able to enjoy this book regardless of their knowledge about comics. However, it’s best enjoyed if you have some familiarity with the tropes being deconstructed, which is a very pompous way of saying FUCK YOU, JOKER, YOU ABUSIVE ASSHAT. We comics readers have a vast reservoir of rage just waiting to be tapped, and this book taps it while still being thoughtful and human.

This is a hard book to read. Stories include loss, betrayal, and exploitation. But it’s also a book about sisterhood, agency, and owning your own story. Sometimes I wanted to cry while reading the book. Sometimes I wanted to scream. At the end, I wanted a framed print of the final illustration by Annie Wu, a “Hell Hath” T-Shirt (would that either of those things were available) and a chance to smash the patriarchy (call your elected officials, y’all). It’s a troubling and triumphant book and anyone who celebrates feminism in comics and good old female rage will love it.

[readyallthecanons]

YJ OC: Apollo Ito

About time I tried making a bio/profile again xD

FC: Ryan Potter Bio Template by Triskata

GENERAL Name: Apollo Asahi Ito Name Meaning: Apollo is of Greek origin and means “manly beauty”; Asahi is of Japanese origin and means “daybreak rising”; Ito is a Japanese noun meaning “thread; yarn, string” Alias: Nox Meaning/Reason: Nox is the Latin word for “darkness” which is an obvious (and totally uncreative) reference to his powers. He considered “The Pianist” but thought it would be too much of a giveaway. Nicknames: Ito, Dapper boi son Team Position: Stealth expert, Escape dude Birthday: October 31, 1998 Sign: Scorpio Age: 18 years old Gender: Cis Male (he/him) Orientation: Bisexual Species: Meta-human Race: Asian Ethnicity: Japanese-White Nationality: American Birth town: St. Louis, Missouri Previous towns:  St. Louis, Missouri Current town: Gotham City Colouring/general features:

Eyes: Black. His sclera turns a dark grey hue whenever he uses his powers. Additionally, his eye colour used to be a dark brown but ever since his powers manifested it has turned black.  

Hair: Black. It is always done in an updo; rarely ever seen down.

Skin: Peach with a yellow undertone. He has a tattoo of a crown on the base of his neck. No other marks (scars, freckles, piercings, etc.) can be seen on his body save for that one.

Height: 5’10” (182.5 cm)

Weight: 160 lbs

Build: Apollo has a lithe, graceful body with broad shoulders and a supple muscle tone almost equally distributed in his arms and legs. He works out to keep his body in good shape and so that when he takes his shirt everyone can be shookt with his “hot bod”. He’s not bulky, really.

Distinguishing features: The eye bags under his eyes are designer. He also has a tongue piercing-but others wouldn’t really know it unless he stuck is tongue out at them. His eyebrow game is also quite strong; it’s thick and pronounced.

Preferred clothing style: He always dresses to the nine’s. His style may be classified as smart casual bordering on semi-formal. Button down tops, slacks/chinos (for a more casual look), and black/dark brown shoes are his go to clothing. Prefers neck ties over bow ties. When he does wear a normal t-shirt, he puts a blazer (or jacket or something) over it; won’t wear just a shirt-most of the time. He never wears long sleeves, though. In terms of design, he prefers simple to none. Brightly printed? He won’t wear something like that. He also prefers duller and muted colours. The really bright ones annoy him. However, contrary to popular belief, he does own other outfits that are not semi-formal or smart casual wear.

Face Claim: Ryan Potter Voice Claim: Steven Yeun (Keith from Voltron Legendary Defender + Wan from the Legend of Korra, sample)

PERSONALITY Alignment: Chaotic Neutral Personality: Apollo is very much known for his vanity, arrogance, and self-centerdness; kind of a tool-ish. He is definitely the type of person who could go on and on and on about himself (or write waxing poetry praising his superior physical aspects). Due to his upbringing and his prodigy status, he has become quite prideful of himself, his abilities, and his looks (especially this part). However, he is only really vocal about his physical aspects; he’s pretty quiet about his piano prodigy status. He trusts pretty easily but don’t destroy his trust in you. It is almost impossible to earn back. He can also be vengeful and remorseless and overzealous in some circumstances. It is his pride and arrogance which leads to him being difficult to deal with at times.

Despite all these short comings of his, he is a very trustworthy person who constantly carries out any promises he makes. No matter how long it takes, he will fulfil it. While he also likes to say the he doesn’t care about anyone, he high key cares very much about others. He’s everyone’s Big Brother and would often check up on his family and friends are doing (if they’re okay-mentally and emotionally, if they’ve eaten their vegetables, etc.). Additionally, he is also quite thick-skinned (for an extremely self-centered guy, comments and insults rarely get under his skin). He is also the type to follow “keep moving forward” as he recovers quickly from his downfalls.

As the villain Nox, he carries a lot of his civilian persona with him- perhaps just a lot more vain and serious. Unusually altruistic for a villain, Apollo isn’t one to sacrifice other people for his own gain. In fact, he feels squeamish about killing others.  He generally avoids killing people (mostly feels uncomfortable about it) who do not specifically wish him harm. If you don’t have a vendetta against him personally, you’re fine and you’ll live. Unless you touch his family/perceived family. He will kill you if you do so. He prefers quick jobs-in and out and no dillydallying. Inspirations: Nico di Angelo, a bunch of German pianists, JJ Leroy, Lester Papadopoulos/Apollo, Jack Sparrow Occupation: Student, Concert Pianist, Conductor and/or Composer (occasionally) Likes: - McDonald’s (will always insist on a drive through or something) - Classical music (his favourites are Debussy and Chopin) - Pirate movies - The dark - Talking about himself - Honest people - Kids/children - Horror movies Dislikes: - Soggy fries - Racist and Sexist assholes - Owing people things (money, favours, etc.) - People who act so high and mighty like they haven’t done anything sketchy their whole life - Bow ties - Fizzy drinks (he hates soda) - Secrets Hobbies: Playing the piano, crossword puzzles (he’s always out to extend his vocabulary, to be honest), yoga, biking, working out (he eats a lot of McDonalds so he has to pay attention to working out a lot), photography Fears: Falling, death, frogs (he hates them so much it’s comical), public humiliation, his siblings finding out about his villain life, getting admitted into the hospital, needles Talents: Piano (he’s a prodigy), sleeping while standing up, differentiating classical pieces which sound almost the same, baking Aesthetic Quote: “I’m an asshole, but what I am not is a 100% dick.” –Guardians of the Galaxy

RELATIONSHIPS Father: Haru Ito- Apollo and his father are on good terms with each other, at least that’s what Haru thinks. However to Apollo, due to family and monetary issues, the relationship was strained by the loss of Apollo’s trust in him. Apollo does still love and respect him. He’s just a bit more critical and iffy towards his father. They still often practice and learn music together-mostly in a way for Haru to make up to Apollo what he’s and his wife has done. Mother: Eliza Thompson-Ito- Similar to his father, Eliza and Apollo’s relationship is strained due to his loss of trust in her. However, he does still love and listen to her. Siblings:

Artemis Akari Ito (his twin sister)- The both of them are very, very close. Apollo would do anything for her and she for him. She mostly attributes his protectiveness and closeness to her to her medical condition. Apollo is very, very supportive of her and is often her accompanist during her cello performances. Artemis is actually very protective of Apollo and doesn’t really approve of his sudden disappearances to do crime work. Apollo thinks that she’s onto him, honestly.

Leander Akiyuki Ito (15 years old)- The both of them often spend late nights playing Overwatch together as well as other computer and video games. They actually lose sleep over this. Apollo is one of the first people who hears Leander’s latest stories as well as puts up with his younger brother’s writer drama (“This story is the worst I’ve ever written!” “I’ll never get this character down!” “I hate writing!11!!”).

Adrasteia “Addie” Atsumi Ito (12 years old)- Addie is a shy, withdrawn little girl who often looks to Apollo for guidance. Apollo is obviously more than happy to help her. He is the one who comforts and validates her when she feels like she’s nothing compared to her other siblings. They watch a lot of horror movies together. He is also Addie’s official trainer to help her control her powers.

Jason Akinori Ito (7 years old)- The youngest of the Ito siblings and possibly the noisiest and annoying-est. Apollo along with Artemis often look after him and read stories to him before sleeping.

Sumi Tatsu/Irezumi (older half-brother; belongs to Triskata)- They hate each other-mostly due to the fact that they misunderstand each other. Apollo doesn’t believe that Tatsu can wipe off all the red in his ledger by doing hero work.

Other: -- Teammates: Arachne , Wildfire, Dev, Annabel, Natus, Finn, Ethan, Penny, Britney, Solana, Queen, the Huntsman Best Friend(s):  [open for connections] Friends: Annabel Herdevary, Dev Hamil, Penny Green, Ethan Tomori, Hanna Makris, Rose Nelson, Solana Perez, Britney Hilt, Cern Ocahii, Finn Lyonas, Andres Begay, Ivelisse Correa-Mercado [open for connections] Acquaintances: Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, Cat Woman [open for connections] Enemies: The Team, the Justice League, Irezumi (Tatsuo), Blue Lantern (Ivelisse), the Reach [open for connections] Love Interest(s): Ivelisse Correa-Mercado (crush; belongs to Kaitie1543)- Apollo is unsure when he actually developed a crush on her but it just happened. Her teasing is something which he’s grown accustomed to and eventually enjoyed her company. However, he hasn’t acted on his feeling because “what even is flirting???” and if anything does happen between them, he isn’t very comfortable sharing his villain persona (which he will want to because honesty and good communication and no secrets). He may be a grade A asshole and think that he’s the most gorgeous man on the face of the planet but he’s no flirt.

BATTLE Powers/Abilities:

Umbrakinesis: Apollo is able to create, shape, and manipulate darkness and shadows-allowing him to absorb or nullify some light in the immediate area.

Umbrakinetic Attacks: He can release/use darkness/shadows to make attacks of various shapes and/or intensities, either projected, used as a part of melee attacks, etc. The strength and magnitude of the attack is greatly reliant on his skill, strength, and stamina. Obviously, bigger attacks take a heavier toll on him as compared to smaller ones. What Apollo does most of the time is release beams/waves of darkness/shadows from his hands; they’re less tiring for him. Creating walls of darkness? That would take a lot more effort.

Shadow-melding: One of the things Apollo has more ease doing. He is able to meld himself into shadows thus rendering himself invisible and undetectable to others (while he is in the shadows, at least).  Of course, once the shadows are dispelled, he immediately reappears.

Shadow Travel: He can use shadows as a way of travel; however, great distances tend to wear him out.

Night Vision: Apollo has excellent vision even in darkness. He is able to see in low light conditions or even in total darkness. Aside from being silent, this ability of his makes him ideal for stealth missions…or simply finding things in the dark. Actually, he just feels pretty at home in the dark.

Bilingualism: He is able to speak both Japanese and English. He doesn’t really mix elements from both in his speech. No accent to take note of either. He mostly speaks in Japanese with his father and sister.

Weaknesses:

Extremely bright light: It is unsurprising that light would be Apollo’s weakness. Large amounts of bright light render him powerless as there is an absence of shadows and/or darkness. It is more difficult for him to summon darkness. He is also weakened against people with Light Manipulation abilities.

Power Limit:  Using his powers take a physical toll on him. The strength and magnitude of his attacks are reliant on his skill, strength, and stamina. After exerting much power (ex. creating large solid walls of darkness), he has been known to pass out and sleep for hours. Shadowtravelling to places too far apart (ex. Philippines to Indonesia) also tire him out immensely. Constant exertion of his powers could also lead to deadly consequences.

Physical human limitations: Apollo, without his powers, is just a normal high school student who has very little knowledge of any form of martial arts. He may look like he does but he doesn’t.

Reliance on powers: Since Apollo is not much of a fighter really, he has come to rely heavily on his powers…which isn’t really good as it tires him out easily (as already mentioned).

Uncontrollable power: In order to properly use his powers, he is supposed to be in sync with his own darkness-which unfortunately he lacks. He may be a grade A asshole but he lacks “darkness” and ruthlessness. This “out of sync” problem of his causes his powers to be uncontrolled. He may cause unwanted and unnecessary damage to those around him. Additionally, he has little control of the amount of power actually expelled so it drains his energy quicker. Same goes for trying to control it, he gets tired quicker.

Weapons/Armour/Equipment:

Kimber Custom TLE II semi-automatic pistol: Not long after his debut as a villain, Apollo took it to carry a pistol around for extra defence. It was at his parent’s insistence. While he doesn’t often use it, he is trained with it (he made himself learn how to use it) and is a pretty decent shot. The gun is usually something he turns to when he’s out of options. Mostly used for threats, honestly.

HISTORY Apollo was born to Haru Ito (a world famous cellist) and Eliza Thompson-Ito (a professor of Greco-Roman literature) in St. Louis, Missouri. When he was 3 years old, he and Artemis were joined by Leander. The three were often quite mischievous and playful together. Sometimes, they would get quite violent- Artemis being the most of the three of them. Three years later, the family was joined by Addie. And they all thought that was the last of their siblings. The four of them grew up close to each other. Then when Apollo was 11, his mother gave birth to Jason who was actually a surprise baby but a welcome one.

Even at a young age, he (along with his twin sister Artemis) were exposed to music by their father in hopes that one of them-if not both- would take after him. When it turned out that Apollo showed an immense affinity for the piano, his parents (particularly his father) were ecstatic. This was then turned to stupefied wonder when he started rapidly developing his skills and even learning pieces that were way way ahead of his age group. At the age of 5, he was able to perform his first concert.

His powers started showing when he was 12 years old. He accidentally fell into the shadows and got stuck there. His parents spent about an hour looking for him. When they found him, it was a bit messy because at first they didn’t believe Apollo. However, after a few more instances and one where they actually witnessed it, they conceded to him. They didn’t know what to do or where it’d come from so they advised him to keep quiet about his powers. However, they did not bar him from learning more about his powers at it could prove useful someday. Aside from that, everything was doing well for Apollo and his family. He loved his siblings more than he loved himself (and that’s saying a lot). And he loved and respected his parents…and supported them even when they weren’t exactly in the right. Blind support, basically. Nonetheless, they lived a happy life together.

Unfortunately, Artemis came down with a serious medical condition (heart failure) that needed a seriously expensive medical attention. It was during this time when Apollo discovered his parents’ secret: the family was actually swimming in debt. They, then, did not have enough money for Artemis’ medical procedure. Haru was often found gambling and to pay for his debts there, he borrowed money from questionable sources- to whom he now owes a debt to. Eliza, on the other hand, was no better. She was a compulsive buyer and often bought things when she felt like it or when she felt upset. Basically, both of them are quite lose with their money handling. When they told Apollo this, he has never felt so betrayed and angry in his life.

Terrified of the idea that he and his siblings might be separated (sent to other relatives while their parents gathered money), Apollo turned to a life of thievery to be able to pay for his family’s debts. He skipped small heists and decided to rob a bank as his debut as a “villain”. When his parents discovered what he had done, Apollo braced to defend himself and was surprised when he didn’t need to. His parents, while not agreeing 100% with their son’s methods, somewhat understood his actions. They and promised that they would work to better themselves. Apollo then hung up his villain lifestyle.

Unfortunately, his parents being loose with their money didn’t improve much and Apollo found himself committing crime more often…just to keep up with his parents’ spending (and to an extent, his own). At first, it took a lot of convincing from his parents to do it. Most of the arguments relied on the “Are we not family and should you not help us? With what you’re doing, you’re helping us. You’re helping our family stay together. Don’t you want us to stay together? Think of your siblings.”. It was quite emotional manipulation-y. Eventually, he did continue the robberies even without his parents’ urging him to do so. He found that there was a certain satisfaction that came with it. Aside from that, it got him money to buy things for his younger siblings and keep his parents happy at the same time. Apollo eventually stopped asking them to change as nothing did change (even when they said they would) and Apollo was raking in large amounts of money. All he asked of his parents was that they keep this lifestyle of his a secret from his younger siblings as he could not bear the idea of them discovering it.

He joined the Young Injustice through Annabel who he helps when she first appeared in Gotham. She was alone and scared and covered in blood and was running away after committing theft. While it was definitely sketchy, Apollo’s big brother instinct kicked in and he helped her escape the police-who he was also running from (as he came from a heist himself).  She stayed the night with him but left to be on her own the following day. Months later, she recruited him into this group of young criminals and he’s stuck with them since. On weekends, he’d often be found in their hideout with McDonald’s and video games.

OTHER Quotes: - “No one says ‘forsooth’ anymore, Annie.” - “What’s the matter? Afraid of the dark?” - “As you wish, sister dear.” - “I’m sexy; I love myself.” Theme Song: Theme of King J.J. – Yuri!!! On Ice soundtrack / Hey Brother - Avicii Food: McDonald’s Fries Drink: Hazelnut Chocolate Ice Blended Coffee (from Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf) Colour: Red Movie: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (he actually loves the whole trilogy; the last two are kinda questionable to him) Book: American Gods by Neil Gaiman Band/Singer: Bruno Mars Subject: Music Animal: Cat (he owns a grey Siberian cat named…Catzilla-Skullcrusher) Element: Water Season: Winter Flower: Carnation (particularly the red ones) Scent:  Chocolate Gem: Obsidian Hogwarts House: Slytherin

TRIVIA

He is very lowkey about his villain persona. The only people who know about his villain life are his parents and Tatsu and the Young Injustice. He is very careful about keeping his secret identity a secret. After all, he is still “Apollo Ito, world famous piano prodigy”. That being said, people who know him as Apollo don’t know about his villain life and vice versa.

His closet is colour coded. Very proud of it and plans to keep it that way. Please don’t mess it up. He’s got a system.

Apollo is named as such for ironic purposes. Like literally. The meaning of his name is also very fitting to his vain and arrogant personality.

He’s not that good at photography but he’s trying- he’s getting better. He likes taking candid photos of his friends and family because the moments look so sincere. He absolutely loves it.

Contrary to popular belief, he is not a selfie person. He will take with others but never by himself.

His younger sister, Addie, was abducted by the Reach. Apollo lost his freakin mind looking for her. She just newly discovered her powers when she was abducted. It was Ivelisse who brought her home after. She can control shadows.

He will babysit your child for free.

While he is a thief, he will always insist on paying for stuff like Starbucks/CBTL, donuts, McDonalds, and other similar things. He only steals from banks and museums and the likes.

A known hugger

[hermanwatts]

Sensor Sweep: Harley Quinn, Luna, David Gemmell, Frankenstein Jr.

Cinema (RT.com): The new DC Universe film ‘Birds of Prey’ is populated by despicable men, and feminist women who want to be just like them. The outcome: financial losses and moral bankruptcy. ‘Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)’ opened on Friday and stars two-time Academy Award nominated actress Margot Robbie reprising her role as DC Comics supervillain Harley Quinn.

History (Sputnik News): Michael “Mad Mike” Hoare, the world’s most famous mercenary, has died. In the 1978 film The Wild Geese Richard Burton played a character who was based on Hoare. One of the world’s most infamous mercenaries, “Mad Mike” Hoare”, has died aged 100. Hoare came to prominence in the 1960s when he led a group of mercenaries who fought in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Fantasy Fiction (Interesting Literature): In the 1980s, with his debut novel Legend (1984), the British author David Gemmell revolutionised heroic fantasy. Drawing on the stories of Robert E. Howard and the novels of Michael Moorcock and J. R. R. Tolkien, Gemmell also took inspiration from his favourite novelist, the prolific writer of Westerns, Louis L’Amour. L’Amour’s stripped-back style of writing, and his emphasis on the darker aspects of the Wild West, combined with the epic qualities of The Lord of the Rings, and Gemmell’s own strong belief in the power of redemption, to create a new model for heroic fantasy, with no-nonsense writing, fast-paced action, and superlative characterisation.

Games (Table Top Gaming News): Board games aren’t new. They’ve been around for thousands of years and some look surprisingly familiar. Smithsonian magazine has a nice story covering some of the most popular ancient games. Maybe some will make a comeback?  Long before Settlers of Catan, Scrabble and Risk won legions of fans, actual Roman legions passed the time by playing Ludus Latrunculorum, a strategic showdown whose Latin name translates loosely to “Game of Mercenaries.” In northwest Europe, meanwhile, the Viking game Hnefatafl popped up in such far-flung locales as Scotland, Norway and Iceland.

Writing (Kairos): The most eye-opening part of being a professional editor has been the fascinating look it offers into other writers’ creative process. There’s a lot of talent out there that oldpub would never give the time of day. These authors are finding audiences thanks to newpub. At the same time, you come to see that the skeptics did have one valid point about self-publishing. Zero barrier to entry does mean that KDP is flooded with work that’s not ready for prime time. That’s not a slight against new authors. Neophytes in any craft can be forgiven for not knowing everything, and for not knowing what they don’t know. Mastery takes practice.

Music/Critics (Wasteland & Sky): As can be seen, they ran wild with this attitude of self-serous fun haters for a very long time. Every Punk and Metal album is disregarded as trash because they weren’t “mature” or “grown up” enough for the clique. Hard Rock, Blues, and Boogie bands were all but ignored or tossed in the trash as redundant and not having enough important to “say”, as well. This sounds all too familiar, does it not? This behavior only makes sense if you understand they were working for an agenda and not to inform the customer about their interest.

T.V. (RMWC Reviews): Superheroes were big in 1966. The decade had started out with DC Comics revitalizing their superhero stable with new versions of the Flash, Green Lantern and more. Meanwhile, the publisher formerly known at Timely and Atlas comics renamed itself to Marvel and cemented its own legacy with The Fantastic Four. Batman got a revitalizing shot in the arm with a live-action TV series. The Fantastic Four and Spider-Man would get cartoon shows in 1967, but between then was Hanna-Barbera.

Fiction (Glorious Trash): Over the years Zwolf has mentioned the short stories that ran in vintage issues of Easyriders, and that three anthologies had been published of these stories in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. I decided to pick up at least one of them, only to find that all three were ridiculously overpriced on the used books market. Then I came across this ’84 British paperback and assumed it must’ve been a retitled reprint of Best Biker Fiction 1 (Dell, 1977) for the UK market.

Horror (Too Much Horror Fiction): Folk horror has been enjoying a resurgence in popularity in recent years, but it is certainly not a new subgenre. Fans have long spoken of the rustic, pagan, creepy charms of books and movies like Harvest Home, Blood on Satan’s Claw, The Wicker Man (based on the near-forgotten 1967 novel Ritual by David Pinner), Witchfinder General, The Ceremonies, “Children of the Corn,” “The Lottery,” most recently Midsommar, and of course back to the greats like Arthur Machen.

Fiction (Dark Worlds Quarterly): We live in a world that ignores its past. “Everything old is new again” is a kinder way to say it. Even Science Fiction does this. I was reminded of this when I finally got around to reading Jack Williamson’s The Legion of Space. Written in 1934 as a serial novel for F. Orlin Tremaine’s Astounding (the one in between the BEMs of the Clayton Astounding and the Golden Age of John W Campbell’s Astounding Science Fiction). The novel offers a roller-coaster ride of wonders, fights, and escapes, as you would expect before things got serious (and frankly often dull) in that “Golden Age.” What I hadn’t expected was the blueprint for hit after hit of Science Fiction’s most popular films.

Art (DMR Books): Today I’m going to take a look at the Frazetta art which features the space-faring hero, Buck Rogers. While I’m sure many hardcore Frazetta fans have seen most of the covers I’ll feature in this post, the backstory and legacy of those works seem to be less well-known. Frazetta began doing Buck Rogers covers for issues of Famous Funnies comics in the early 1950s starting with #209. n my opinion, the first few covers were not primo Frazetta, but by the time he got to #211, Frank was hitting his stride. My favorite out of the entire run is #214.

Reading (Karavansara): First factor: as I grow old, I have no more time for trilogies made of seven 1000-pages books, that seem to be the default format of fantasy these days. And indeed, I mostly go for short story collections, or for one-shot novels. Shorter works allow me to try many different authors and worlds, instead of chaining me to some overblown storyline.

RPG (Emperor Ponders): I think some of you may be confused about what RPGs are. I know it says “roleplay” in there (probably not the best choice of a word, but now we are stuck with it) but it’s not really acting or performance. Nobody requires you to perform anything. If you are in a group where people or the DM forces you to act or perform, just run away and don’t look back. You may be a bit confused, so here’s the general play pattern pretty much all RPGs follow, or should follow,:

Art (Silver Key): Some more Tom Barber art. Sent to me via email and reposted here with his permission. This first could/should be on the cover of a Dungeons and Dragons supplement. The latter is called “Holding off Distractions” and is beyond bad-ass, very sword-and-sorcery. Love the use of shadow in both. Amazing work here.

Fantasy Fiction (DMR Books): A prequel to all of that mayhem is, of course, The Children of Hurin. That short novel is a perfect illustration of why there must be a delineation betwixt “heroic fantasy” and its sub-category, “sword-and-sorcery”. How can I put this? Clark Ashton Smith was a fan of The Lord of the Rings. Simple as that. Here is what Dr. W.C. Farmer–Clark’s last great friend–had to say about it:

Ian Fleming (Bloody Spicy Books): Ian Fleming’s James Bond has left a huge stamp on my life. After seeing 1995’s “Goldeneye” in the theater my love of super secret agents was firmly ignited. I wanted more and I dove deep. There was more movies? I rushed to Blockbuster (dating myself) and found myself discovering Sean, Roger, Timothy and even George. There were James Bond books? I dove in. Past the character I found out about Leslie Charteris “The Saint” via Roger’s show. “The Man From U.N.C.L.E?” I’m there. Hundred of hardback and paperback hero-spies later eventually it led me to the spawn of Bond, the Men’s Adventure paperbacks.

Appendix N (Goodman Games): Farmer found early acclaim in the pulps, winning the Hugo in 1953 for Best New SF Author only a year after the publication of his first tale in Startling Stories. He continued writing for Startling Stories where his work would be found beside that of other Appendix N luminaries like Jack Vance and Fletcher Pratt. Other early works can be found in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, a publication that features a letter to the editor from Gary Gygax himself in the August 1963 issue.

Robert E. Howard (Walker’s Retreat): I have a copy of this volume, as I have every volume in this series, and I can confirm everything Stewart says in his review. This is a fantastic volume, well worth buying a physical copy of and putting into your private library. You will be able to see where Howard got the ideas that would ultimately become Conan the Cimmerian, how that voice would develop, and yet this character–Kull–would remain separate and distinct from Conan.

New Fiction (John C. Wright): Jagi, here. You may have heard that the Planetary anthology series has changed publishers and is now coming out from Tuscany Bay Books (TBB). Today, TBB launches Planetary: Luna. I am particularly proud of this book because I was the co-editor before it moved to its new home. (I bowed out because I wasn’t needed.) This book includes excellent stories from many great authors.

Science Fiction (Locus Magazine): And so here we are in the quintessentially stefnal-sounding year of 2020, looking back forty-six years to the 1974 appearance of an anthology helmed by Jerry Pournelle and aimed squarely at our present day. And our first response to the book must invariably be, “Why did they not publish this in 1970, to make a nicely rounded fifty-year look-ahead?” This book’s entry at ISFDB offers a relevant tidbit: “This began as an original anthology with most of the work commissioned in 1971.

Sensor Sweep: Harley Quinn, Luna, David Gemmell, Frankenstein Jr. published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

[samanthasroberts]

The 5 Best Halloween Episodes You Should Watch Tonight

Happy Halloween, everyone! How you choose to celebrate this most blessed of holidays is up to you. Some of you will drink pumpkin beer until you poop jack o’ lanterns, some of you will take your children trick-or-treating, and some of you will sit on the couch and absorb horror films. But if I can make a suggestion for that last group: In between your annual viewings of Halloween 4: The One Where Michael Myers’ Mask Looks Like Total Dogshit and Texas Chainsaw Massacre III: Not That Bad, Actually, consider watching some Halloween-themed TV episodes. Because while movies are great for frights, there are a few TV shows that actually capture the spirit of Halloween. For example …

5

The Office: “Employee Transfer”

The year is 2008. The place is every theater in the known world. The movie is The Dark Knight. And the thought that’s going through four billion heads simultaneously is “I know what I’m going to be for Halloween this year.”

Read Next

How The 'Last Of Us 2' Trailer Ruined A Sure Thing

On October 31, 2008, you couldn’t throw a Batarang without hitting someone dressed in a Heath Ledger Joker outfit. The simple act of going outside was an invitation for swarms of people in purple sweatpants to come up and ask you if you wanted to see a magic trick. Drama kids draped themselves in long wool coats and ventured into the cool autumn night, looking for prey to listen to their story about how they got their scars. Former frat bros lathered on white facepaint and sipped vodka red bulls as they mumbled through half-remembered things about “chaos” and “killing the Batman.” And the one guy dressed as Beetlejuice spent the whole evening correcting people.

It was like magic. Somewhere in Heath Ledger’s wonderful performance, the worst people you knew heard a dog whistle. A dog whistle which screeched “Annoy the fuck out of everyone you know and love.” The Office understood that this was going to happen, and that’s why “Employee Transfer” is so great.

Airing on October 30th, it was like a warning to the general public: Beware, for tomorrow your neighbors will turn on you, your children will betray you, and your roommates will spend six hours attempting to apply cheek prosthetics before giving up and just using a pound of lipstick. Any show that can accurately capture the frustration of existing in the same universe as the mob of Jokers before that day of frustration actually occurs is worth your attention.

“Employee Transfer” features some of Steve Carell’s best acting in the whole series, but it’s also a great parody of the time the Earth cancelled Halloween and replaced it with Jokerfest 2008. I’ll never forgive Christopher Nolan. Never.

4

The Spectacular Spider-Man: “The Uncertainty Principle”

It’s hard for superhero shows to do a good Halloween episode, and I think it’s because superheroes wear masks all the time, and a lot of the comedy from any Halloween episode comes from what the characters decide to dress up as. It’s really hard to properly dress up as anything when your main wardrobe is one bright color with a huge symbol on your chest. That’s why most superhero Halloween specials are just plain adventure stories. In The Batman episode “Grundy’s Night,” Clayface pretends to be unkillable zombie Solomon Grundy to better rob intolerable old rich people. It’s great. You should check it out.

Unsurprisingly, The Spectacular Spider-Man, the best superhero cartoon of all time, broke the mold a little bit and gave us a Halloween episode that’s a little more think-y. However, all this metaphorin’ doesn’t prevent the episode from having a fight between Green Goblin and Spider-Man which takes up the entire third act. That was probably the greatest strength of the show: being able to balance teen drama and deep reflection with radioactive boxing matches that usually lasted about seven glorious minutes.

While most interpretations of the Green Goblin never get past the whole “Curse you, Spider-Maaaaaan” section of their shtick, this Green Goblin is a playful, sadistic dick. He’s constantly asking Spider-Man to consider what “mask” is real — the mask that hides your face or the mask that is your face. This doesn’t just play into the mystery of who the Green Goblin is, but also deals with something that’s lacking in a lot of superhero shows that are made for kids: At what point does your human identity become the facade? The Green Goblin and Peter Parker aren’t opposites; they’re both freaks who only find respite and fulfillment when they wear their masks. Peter Parker is a bespectacled shell of a nerd. It’s only when he’s Spider-Man, quipping and punching with psychopathic consistency, that his actual mask gets taken off.

Anyway, Green Goblin (Norman Osborn) fakes a leg injury and then retreats back to his home. There, he finds his son passed out, breaks his own son’s fucking leg, and puts the Goblin costume on him. Then, when Spider-Man gets there, Norman is all like “We gotta get my son some help. He’s really sick. See, his leg is broken. He’s helpless. WINK.” So yeah, if you want to watch something with all the fun of a Marvel character and all the “Oh my god, no” of comic book child abuse, this is a good one. Jeez. Maybe you should’ve just gone to a costume party or something, y’all.

3

Any Roseanne Halloween Episode

If you grew up in a small town like I did, you know that Halloweens are a gamble. You’ll get to go trick-or-treating, but only if your parents are down to drive you to a more populated place that supports such an activity. Otherwise you’re just trudging in a ditch down a lonely country road, hoping that a passing car doesn’t hit you and ruin your Dollar Store Wolfman mask and spill all of your candy. And when you age out of that, you go to a local haunted maze, which never fails to be out in the middle of nowhere. There, you watch theatrical rednecks rev chainsaws, wave severed prop heads, and ignore copyright infringements. In North Carolina, you don’t legally reach puberty until you’ve held someone’s hand through the Hacker House. It’s the law.

One of the draws of the sitcom Roseanne was that it was about a lower-middle-class family. So many sitcoms were based around how cool it would be to have friends in New York City, or how great it would be if you could shove a dozen family members into the same piece of prime San Francisco real estate. But Roseanne was hunkered down in the suburbs. The main set looked like it had been cobbled together from a thrift store’s going-out-of-business sale, the costumes were from a Fashion Bug clearance rack, and the family was loud and loving, just like mine.

Except on Halloween.

The Halloween episodes of Roseanne are things of sitcom legend. Barely having anything to do with the show itself, the Halloween episodes would go all out and present an alternate Roseanne reality where the family could suddenly afford elaborate costumes and expensive makeup. Halloween was the biggest day of the year (as it should be in all worlds, fictional or otherwise), and the usual relaxed pace of a Roseanne episode was replaced by a frantic joke parade. And for me, it was pure wish fulfillment.

You wanted to have a Roseanne Halloween. A Halloween where you could buy that expensive costume that you saw at the mall and run around and play pranks on everyone. A Halloween where you could go trick-or-treating with your friends, because most houses were less than a quarter of a mile from each other. A Halloween where everyone, adults included, understood how important Halloween was to you.

The Halloweens I experienced as a kid were fucking wonderful. But just once, I wanted a Roseanne Halloween.

2

How I Met Your Mother: “The Slutty Pumpkin Returns”

I moved from North Carolina to NYC, because it’s the true path of an artist to be miserable in a small town and then move to a large town where you’re only mostly miserable. And it’s there that I learned that you will see most of the people you know maybe once every few months. It’s just hard to hang out with people. Sure, a subway system connects the whole city, but deciding to use it is flipping the coin on whether a particular train works that day or not. So you’ll go a long time without seeing someone important to you. “Oh, I remember you! You were at that thing in 1988! New Jersey now, huh?”

The How I Met Your Mother Halloween episode “The Slutty Pumpkin Returns” gets that more than most NYC-based sitcoms. In it, human sweater vest Ted Mosby finally meets up with a girl that he saw at a Halloween party years earlier. She’d been dressed as a pumpkin, and as he did with most things with a pulse, he fell in love with her. But now, upon meeting her and dating her, he finds that they have absolutely no spark. Sitcoms, right? One minute you’re in a zany situation, the next you’re finding out that you’ve spent the last ten years pining after a lie. Laugh track!

Halloween in a big city is weird. On one hand, you want to explore what it has to offer, but it’s easy to get discouraged by the fact that you know that something like “HALLOWEEN PARTY FEATURING DJ QUANTUM. HALF-OFF SHOTS. PEOPLE IN COSTUMES GET A FREE PUMPKIN TEQUILA ENEMA” will attract roughly 30,000 people. So you go to parties, where you make friends you don’t see again for eight years. And so your big-city circle of friends becomes a mix of a core group you hang out with constantly and people you see once a decade. It’s kind of nice, especially in a sea of sitcoms that portray NYC as a place where you apparently can teleport from borough to borough, never having to worry about petty things like time or physics.

1

Walker, Texas Ranger: “The Children Of Halloween”

I don’t blame you if you don’t want to watch Walker, Texas Ranger. Chuck Norris is a pretty cartoonish figure in pop culture, but most episodes of Walker are a slog. Chuck kicks some criminals, administers a moral lesson, and talks down to everyone. Chuck Norris is judge, jury, executioner, God, Jesus, and Shakespeare in Walker, Texas Ranger. Somehow, Chuck Norris made a show about roundhouse kicks into something as boring as a Pat Robertson colonoscopy.

However, if you’re looking for something that is simultaneously a piece of batshit holiday insanity and the Walker-est Texas-est Ranger-est episode of Walker, Texas Ranger ever, watch “The Children Of Halloween.” It opens with Norris scoffing at his black co-worker’s George Washington Carver costume. Walker is a Texas Ranger, but more than that, he’s an awful dickhead.

One scene of men in ape masks shooting machine guns at a convenience store for no reason later, and we get a touching montage of kids practicing martial arts that feels like it lasts two hours. One of those kids is abducted by a satanic cult, and Walker is dropped into a race against time to stop children from being sacrificed. How spooky is all of this? So spooky that the opening credits adopt a Tales From The Crypt font and show us a cemetery with a blue filter over it. Fucking boo.

Sony Pictures Television Distribution

That’s ultimate spooky.

Regardless, Walker has never met a problem he couldn’t quite easily resolve by beating it unconscious. In the nick of time, he literally flies onto the screen with a side-kick, and then breaks a Satan worshiper’s neck in front of a group of stunned children. He proceeds to kick an entire cult into submission and saves the day. Walker finishes the episode by drinking coffee in a bar while ignoring the women who hit on him, because as the theme song says, “That’s what a ranger’s gonna be.” Yep. Murder a bunch of strangers in front of elementary schoolers and never have sex, like, ever. It’s what a ranger’s gonna be. Who am I to argue?

Daniel has a spooky, scary Twitter.

The Simpsons Tree House of Horror Collection is objectively the greatest Halloween TV you’ll ever find on this Earth. Enjoy!

If you loved this article and want more content like this, support our site with a visit to our Contribution Page. Please and thank you.

For more, check out 6 Unnecessarily Horrifying Episodes Of Beloved Kids Shows and 5 Inexplicably Creepy Episodes of Family Friendly TV Shows.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out The Darkest Episode of an 80’s Sitcom Ever, and watch other videos you won’t see on the site!

Also follow us on Facebook. Boo!

Source: http://allofbeer.com/2017/12/06/the-5-best-halloween-episodes-you-should-watch-tonight/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2017/12/06/the-5-best-halloween-episodes-you-should-watch-tonight/

[adambstingus]

The 5 Best Halloween Episodes You Should Watch Tonight

Happy Halloween, everyone! How you choose to celebrate this most blessed of holidays is up to you. Some of you will drink pumpkin beer until you poop jack o’ lanterns, some of you will take your children trick-or-treating, and some of you will sit on the couch and absorb horror films. But if I can make a suggestion for that last group: In between your annual viewings of Halloween 4: The One Where Michael Myers’ Mask Looks Like Total Dogshit and Texas Chainsaw Massacre III: Not That Bad, Actually, consider watching some Halloween-themed TV episodes. Because while movies are great for frights, there are a few TV shows that actually capture the spirit of Halloween. For example …

5

The Office: “Employee Transfer”

The year is 2008. The place is every theater in the known world. The movie is The Dark Knight. And the thought that’s going through four billion heads simultaneously is “I know what I’m going to be for Halloween this year.”

Read Next

How The ‘Last Of Us 2’ Trailer Ruined A Sure Thing

On October 31, 2008, you couldn’t throw a Batarang without hitting someone dressed in a Heath Ledger Joker outfit. The simple act of going outside was an invitation for swarms of people in purple sweatpants to come up and ask you if you wanted to see a magic trick. Drama kids draped themselves in long wool coats and ventured into the cool autumn night, looking for prey to listen to their story about how they got their scars. Former frat bros lathered on white facepaint and sipped vodka red bulls as they mumbled through half-remembered things about “chaos” and “killing the Batman.” And the one guy dressed as Beetlejuice spent the whole evening correcting people.

It was like magic. Somewhere in Heath Ledger’s wonderful performance, the worst people you knew heard a dog whistle. A dog whistle which screeched “Annoy the fuck out of everyone you know and love.” The Office understood that this was going to happen, and that’s why “Employee Transfer” is so great.

Airing on October 30th, it was like a warning to the general public: Beware, for tomorrow your neighbors will turn on you, your children will betray you, and your roommates will spend six hours attempting to apply cheek prosthetics before giving up and just using a pound of lipstick. Any show that can accurately capture the frustration of existing in the same universe as the mob of Jokers before that day of frustration actually occurs is worth your attention.

“Employee Transfer” features some of Steve Carell’s best acting in the whole series, but it’s also a great parody of the time the Earth cancelled Halloween and replaced it with Jokerfest 2008. I’ll never forgive Christopher Nolan. Never.

4

The Spectacular Spider-Man: “The Uncertainty Principle”

It’s hard for superhero shows to do a good Halloween episode, and I think it’s because superheroes wear masks all the time, and a lot of the comedy from any Halloween episode comes from what the characters decide to dress up as. It’s really hard to properly dress up as anything when your main wardrobe is one bright color with a huge symbol on your chest. That’s why most superhero Halloween specials are just plain adventure stories. In The Batman episode “Grundy’s Night,” Clayface pretends to be unkillable zombie Solomon Grundy to better rob intolerable old rich people. It’s great. You should check it out.

Unsurprisingly, The Spectacular Spider-Man, the best superhero cartoon of all time, broke the mold a little bit and gave us a Halloween episode that’s a little more think-y. However, all this metaphorin’ doesn’t prevent the episode from having a fight between Green Goblin and Spider-Man which takes up the entire third act. That was probably the greatest strength of the show: being able to balance teen drama and deep reflection with radioactive boxing matches that usually lasted about seven glorious minutes.

While most interpretations of the Green Goblin never get past the whole “Curse you, Spider-Maaaaaan” section of their shtick, this Green Goblin is a playful, sadistic dick. He’s constantly asking Spider-Man to consider what “mask” is real — the mask that hides your face or the mask that is your face. This doesn’t just play into the mystery of who the Green Goblin is, but also deals with something that’s lacking in a lot of superhero shows that are made for kids: At what point does your human identity become the facade? The Green Goblin and Peter Parker aren’t opposites; they’re both freaks who only find respite and fulfillment when they wear their masks. Peter Parker is a bespectacled shell of a nerd. It’s only when he’s Spider-Man, quipping and punching with psychopathic consistency, that his actual mask gets taken off.

Anyway, Green Goblin (Norman Osborn) fakes a leg injury and then retreats back to his home. There, he finds his son passed out, breaks his own son’s fucking leg, and puts the Goblin costume on him. Then, when Spider-Man gets there, Norman is all like “We gotta get my son some help. He’s really sick. See, his leg is broken. He’s helpless. WINK.” So yeah, if you want to watch something with all the fun of a Marvel character and all the “Oh my god, no” of comic book child abuse, this is a good one. Jeez. Maybe you should’ve just gone to a costume party or something, y’all.

3

Any Roseanne Halloween Episode

If you grew up in a small town like I did, you know that Halloweens are a gamble. You’ll get to go trick-or-treating, but only if your parents are down to drive you to a more populated place that supports such an activity. Otherwise you’re just trudging in a ditch down a lonely country road, hoping that a passing car doesn’t hit you and ruin your Dollar Store Wolfman mask and spill all of your candy. And when you age out of that, you go to a local haunted maze, which never fails to be out in the middle of nowhere. There, you watch theatrical rednecks rev chainsaws, wave severed prop heads, and ignore copyright infringements. In North Carolina, you don’t legally reach puberty until you’ve held someone’s hand through the Hacker House. It’s the law.

One of the draws of the sitcom Roseanne was that it was about a lower-middle-class family. So many sitcoms were based around how cool it would be to have friends in New York City, or how great it would be if you could shove a dozen family members into the same piece of prime San Francisco real estate. But Roseanne was hunkered down in the suburbs. The main set looked like it had been cobbled together from a thrift store’s going-out-of-business sale, the costumes were from a Fashion Bug clearance rack, and the family was loud and loving, just like mine.

Except on Halloween.

The Halloween episodes of Roseanne are things of sitcom legend. Barely having anything to do with the show itself, the Halloween episodes would go all out and present an alternate Roseanne reality where the family could suddenly afford elaborate costumes and expensive makeup. Halloween was the biggest day of the year (as it should be in all worlds, fictional or otherwise), and the usual relaxed pace of a Roseanne episode was replaced by a frantic joke parade. And for me, it was pure wish fulfillment.

You wanted to have a Roseanne Halloween. A Halloween where you could buy that expensive costume that you saw at the mall and run around and play pranks on everyone. A Halloween where you could go trick-or-treating with your friends, because most houses were less than a quarter of a mile from each other. A Halloween where everyone, adults included, understood how important Halloween was to you.

The Halloweens I experienced as a kid were fucking wonderful. But just once, I wanted a Roseanne Halloween.

2

How I Met Your Mother: “The Slutty Pumpkin Returns”

I moved from North Carolina to NYC, because it’s the true path of an artist to be miserable in a small town and then move to a large town where you’re only mostly miserable. And it’s there that I learned that you will see most of the people you know maybe once every few months. It’s just hard to hang out with people. Sure, a subway system connects the whole city, but deciding to use it is flipping the coin on whether a particular train works that day or not. So you’ll go a long time without seeing someone important to you. “Oh, I remember you! You were at that thing in 1988! New Jersey now, huh?”

The How I Met Your Mother Halloween episode “The Slutty Pumpkin Returns” gets that more than most NYC-based sitcoms. In it, human sweater vest Ted Mosby finally meets up with a girl that he saw at a Halloween party years earlier. She’d been dressed as a pumpkin, and as he did with most things with a pulse, he fell in love with her. But now, upon meeting her and dating her, he finds that they have absolutely no spark. Sitcoms, right? One minute you’re in a zany situation, the next you’re finding out that you’ve spent the last ten years pining after a lie. Laugh track!

Halloween in a big city is weird. On one hand, you want to explore what it has to offer, but it’s easy to get discouraged by the fact that you know that something like “HALLOWEEN PARTY FEATURING DJ QUANTUM. HALF-OFF SHOTS. PEOPLE IN COSTUMES GET A FREE PUMPKIN TEQUILA ENEMA” will attract roughly 30,000 people. So you go to parties, where you make friends you don’t see again for eight years. And so your big-city circle of friends becomes a mix of a core group you hang out with constantly and people you see once a decade. It’s kind of nice, especially in a sea of sitcoms that portray NYC as a place where you apparently can teleport from borough to borough, never having to worry about petty things like time or physics.

1

Walker, Texas Ranger: “The Children Of Halloween”

I don’t blame you if you don’t want to watch Walker, Texas Ranger. Chuck Norris is a pretty cartoonish figure in pop culture, but most episodes of Walker are a slog. Chuck kicks some criminals, administers a moral lesson, and talks down to everyone. Chuck Norris is judge, jury, executioner, God, Jesus, and Shakespeare in Walker, Texas Ranger. Somehow, Chuck Norris made a show about roundhouse kicks into something as boring as a Pat Robertson colonoscopy.

However, if you’re looking for something that is simultaneously a piece of batshit holiday insanity and the Walker-est Texas-est Ranger-est episode of Walker, Texas Ranger ever, watch “The Children Of Halloween.” It opens with Norris scoffing at his black co-worker’s George Washington Carver costume. Walker is a Texas Ranger, but more than that, he’s an awful dickhead.

One scene of men in ape masks shooting machine guns at a convenience store for no reason later, and we get a touching montage of kids practicing martial arts that feels like it lasts two hours. One of those kids is abducted by a satanic cult, and Walker is dropped into a race against time to stop children from being sacrificed. How spooky is all of this? So spooky that the opening credits adopt a Tales From The Crypt font and show us a cemetery with a blue filter over it. Fucking boo.

Sony Pictures Television Distribution

That’s ultimate spooky.

Regardless, Walker has never met a problem he couldn’t quite easily resolve by beating it unconscious. In the nick of time, he literally flies onto the screen with a side-kick, and then breaks a Satan worshiper’s neck in front of a group of stunned children. He proceeds to kick an entire cult into submission and saves the day. Walker finishes the episode by drinking coffee in a bar while ignoring the women who hit on him, because as the theme song says, “That’s what a ranger’s gonna be.” Yep. Murder a bunch of strangers in front of elementary schoolers and never have sex, like, ever. It’s what a ranger’s gonna be. Who am I to argue?

Daniel has a spooky, scary Twitter.

The Simpsons Tree House of Horror Collection is objectively the greatest Halloween TV you’ll ever find on this Earth. Enjoy!

If you loved this article and want more content like this, support our site with a visit to our Contribution Page. Please and thank you.

For more, check out 6 Unnecessarily Horrifying Episodes Of Beloved Kids Shows and 5 Inexplicably Creepy Episodes of Family Friendly TV Shows.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out The Darkest Episode of an 80’s Sitcom Ever, and watch other videos you won’t see on the site!

Also follow us on Facebook. Boo!

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/2017/12/06/the-5-best-halloween-episodes-you-should-watch-tonight/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/168246093102

[allofbeercom]

The 5 Best Halloween Episodes You Should Watch Tonight

Happy Halloween, everyone! How you choose to celebrate this most blessed of holidays is up to you. Some of you will drink pumpkin beer until you poop jack o’ lanterns, some of you will take your children trick-or-treating, and some of you will sit on the couch and absorb horror films. But if I can make a suggestion for that last group: In between your annual viewings of Halloween 4: The One Where Michael Myers’ Mask Looks Like Total Dogshit and Texas Chainsaw Massacre III: Not That Bad, Actually, consider watching some Halloween-themed TV episodes. Because while movies are great for frights, there are a few TV shows that actually capture the spirit of Halloween. For example …

5

The Office: “Employee Transfer”

The year is 2008. The place is every theater in the known world. The movie is The Dark Knight. And the thought that’s going through four billion heads simultaneously is “I know what I’m going to be for Halloween this year.”

Read Next

How The 'Last Of Us 2' Trailer Ruined A Sure Thing

On October 31, 2008, you couldn’t throw a Batarang without hitting someone dressed in a Heath Ledger Joker outfit. The simple act of going outside was an invitation for swarms of people in purple sweatpants to come up and ask you if you wanted to see a magic trick. Drama kids draped themselves in long wool coats and ventured into the cool autumn night, looking for prey to listen to their story about how they got their scars. Former frat bros lathered on white facepaint and sipped vodka red bulls as they mumbled through half-remembered things about “chaos” and “killing the Batman.” And the one guy dressed as Beetlejuice spent the whole evening correcting people.

It was like magic. Somewhere in Heath Ledger’s wonderful performance, the worst people you knew heard a dog whistle. A dog whistle which screeched “Annoy the fuck out of everyone you know and love.” The Office understood that this was going to happen, and that’s why “Employee Transfer” is so great.

Airing on October 30th, it was like a warning to the general public: Beware, for tomorrow your neighbors will turn on you, your children will betray you, and your roommates will spend six hours attempting to apply cheek prosthetics before giving up and just using a pound of lipstick. Any show that can accurately capture the frustration of existing in the same universe as the mob of Jokers before that day of frustration actually occurs is worth your attention.

“Employee Transfer” features some of Steve Carell’s best acting in the whole series, but it’s also a great parody of the time the Earth cancelled Halloween and replaced it with Jokerfest 2008. I’ll never forgive Christopher Nolan. Never.

4

The Spectacular Spider-Man: “The Uncertainty Principle”

It’s hard for superhero shows to do a good Halloween episode, and I think it’s because superheroes wear masks all the time, and a lot of the comedy from any Halloween episode comes from what the characters decide to dress up as. It’s really hard to properly dress up as anything when your main wardrobe is one bright color with a huge symbol on your chest. That’s why most superhero Halloween specials are just plain adventure stories. In The Batman episode “Grundy’s Night,” Clayface pretends to be unkillable zombie Solomon Grundy to better rob intolerable old rich people. It’s great. You should check it out.

Unsurprisingly, The Spectacular Spider-Man, the best superhero cartoon of all time, broke the mold a little bit and gave us a Halloween episode that’s a little more think-y. However, all this metaphorin’ doesn’t prevent the episode from having a fight between Green Goblin and Spider-Man which takes up the entire third act. That was probably the greatest strength of the show: being able to balance teen drama and deep reflection with radioactive boxing matches that usually lasted about seven glorious minutes.

While most interpretations of the Green Goblin never get past the whole “Curse you, Spider-Maaaaaan” section of their shtick, this Green Goblin is a playful, sadistic dick. He’s constantly asking Spider-Man to consider what “mask” is real — the mask that hides your face or the mask that is your face. This doesn’t just play into the mystery of who the Green Goblin is, but also deals with something that’s lacking in a lot of superhero shows that are made for kids: At what point does your human identity become the facade? The Green Goblin and Peter Parker aren’t opposites; they’re both freaks who only find respite and fulfillment when they wear their masks. Peter Parker is a bespectacled shell of a nerd. It’s only when he’s Spider-Man, quipping and punching with psychopathic consistency, that his actual mask gets taken off.

Anyway, Green Goblin (Norman Osborn) fakes a leg injury and then retreats back to his home. There, he finds his son passed out, breaks his own son’s fucking leg, and puts the Goblin costume on him. Then, when Spider-Man gets there, Norman is all like “We gotta get my son some help. He’s really sick. See, his leg is broken. He’s helpless. WINK.” So yeah, if you want to watch something with all the fun of a Marvel character and all the “Oh my god, no” of comic book child abuse, this is a good one. Jeez. Maybe you should’ve just gone to a costume party or something, y’all.

3

Any Roseanne Halloween Episode

If you grew up in a small town like I did, you know that Halloweens are a gamble. You’ll get to go trick-or-treating, but only if your parents are down to drive you to a more populated place that supports such an activity. Otherwise you’re just trudging in a ditch down a lonely country road, hoping that a passing car doesn’t hit you and ruin your Dollar Store Wolfman mask and spill all of your candy. And when you age out of that, you go to a local haunted maze, which never fails to be out in the middle of nowhere. There, you watch theatrical rednecks rev chainsaws, wave severed prop heads, and ignore copyright infringements. In North Carolina, you don’t legally reach puberty until you’ve held someone’s hand through the Hacker House. It’s the law.

One of the draws of the sitcom Roseanne was that it was about a lower-middle-class family. So many sitcoms were based around how cool it would be to have friends in New York City, or how great it would be if you could shove a dozen family members into the same piece of prime San Francisco real estate. But Roseanne was hunkered down in the suburbs. The main set looked like it had been cobbled together from a thrift store’s going-out-of-business sale, the costumes were from a Fashion Bug clearance rack, and the family was loud and loving, just like mine.

Except on Halloween.

The Halloween episodes of Roseanne are things of sitcom legend. Barely having anything to do with the show itself, the Halloween episodes would go all out and present an alternate Roseanne reality where the family could suddenly afford elaborate costumes and expensive makeup. Halloween was the biggest day of the year (as it should be in all worlds, fictional or otherwise), and the usual relaxed pace of a Roseanne episode was replaced by a frantic joke parade. And for me, it was pure wish fulfillment.

You wanted to have a Roseanne Halloween. A Halloween where you could buy that expensive costume that you saw at the mall and run around and play pranks on everyone. A Halloween where you could go trick-or-treating with your friends, because most houses were less than a quarter of a mile from each other. A Halloween where everyone, adults included, understood how important Halloween was to you.

The Halloweens I experienced as a kid were fucking wonderful. But just once, I wanted a Roseanne Halloween.

2

How I Met Your Mother: “The Slutty Pumpkin Returns”

I moved from North Carolina to NYC, because it’s the true path of an artist to be miserable in a small town and then move to a large town where you’re only mostly miserable. And it’s there that I learned that you will see most of the people you know maybe once every few months. It’s just hard to hang out with people. Sure, a subway system connects the whole city, but deciding to use it is flipping the coin on whether a particular train works that day or not. So you’ll go a long time without seeing someone important to you. “Oh, I remember you! You were at that thing in 1988! New Jersey now, huh?”

The How I Met Your Mother Halloween episode “The Slutty Pumpkin Returns” gets that more than most NYC-based sitcoms. In it, human sweater vest Ted Mosby finally meets up with a girl that he saw at a Halloween party years earlier. She’d been dressed as a pumpkin, and as he did with most things with a pulse, he fell in love with her. But now, upon meeting her and dating her, he finds that they have absolutely no spark. Sitcoms, right? One minute you’re in a zany situation, the next you’re finding out that you’ve spent the last ten years pining after a lie. Laugh track!

Halloween in a big city is weird. On one hand, you want to explore what it has to offer, but it’s easy to get discouraged by the fact that you know that something like “HALLOWEEN PARTY FEATURING DJ QUANTUM. HALF-OFF SHOTS. PEOPLE IN COSTUMES GET A FREE PUMPKIN TEQUILA ENEMA” will attract roughly 30,000 people. So you go to parties, where you make friends you don’t see again for eight years. And so your big-city circle of friends becomes a mix of a core group you hang out with constantly and people you see once a decade. It’s kind of nice, especially in a sea of sitcoms that portray NYC as a place where you apparently can teleport from borough to borough, never having to worry about petty things like time or physics.

1

Walker, Texas Ranger: “The Children Of Halloween”

I don’t blame you if you don’t want to watch Walker, Texas Ranger. Chuck Norris is a pretty cartoonish figure in pop culture, but most episodes of Walker are a slog. Chuck kicks some criminals, administers a moral lesson, and talks down to everyone. Chuck Norris is judge, jury, executioner, God, Jesus, and Shakespeare in Walker, Texas Ranger. Somehow, Chuck Norris made a show about roundhouse kicks into something as boring as a Pat Robertson colonoscopy.

However, if you’re looking for something that is simultaneously a piece of batshit holiday insanity and the Walker-est Texas-est Ranger-est episode of Walker, Texas Ranger ever, watch “The Children Of Halloween.” It opens with Norris scoffing at his black co-worker’s George Washington Carver costume. Walker is a Texas Ranger, but more than that, he’s an awful dickhead.

One scene of men in ape masks shooting machine guns at a convenience store for no reason later, and we get a touching montage of kids practicing martial arts that feels like it lasts two hours. One of those kids is abducted by a satanic cult, and Walker is dropped into a race against time to stop children from being sacrificed. How spooky is all of this? So spooky that the opening credits adopt a Tales From The Crypt font and show us a cemetery with a blue filter over it. Fucking boo.

Sony Pictures Television Distribution

That’s ultimate spooky.

Regardless, Walker has never met a problem he couldn’t quite easily resolve by beating it unconscious. In the nick of time, he literally flies onto the screen with a side-kick, and then breaks a Satan worshiper’s neck in front of a group of stunned children. He proceeds to kick an entire cult into submission and saves the day. Walker finishes the episode by drinking coffee in a bar while ignoring the women who hit on him, because as the theme song says, “That’s what a ranger’s gonna be.” Yep. Murder a bunch of strangers in front of elementary schoolers and never have sex, like, ever. It’s what a ranger’s gonna be. Who am I to argue?

Daniel has a spooky, scary Twitter.

The Simpsons Tree House of Horror Collection is objectively the greatest Halloween TV you’ll ever find on this Earth. Enjoy!

If you loved this article and want more content like this, support our site with a visit to our Contribution Page. Please and thank you.

For more, check out 6 Unnecessarily Horrifying Episodes Of Beloved Kids Shows and 5 Inexplicably Creepy Episodes of Family Friendly TV Shows.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out The Darkest Episode of an 80’s Sitcom Ever, and watch other videos you won’t see on the site!

Also follow us on Facebook. Boo!

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/2017/12/06/the-5-best-halloween-episodes-you-should-watch-tonight/

[totesmccoats]

Doomsday Clock #1

We open in Watchmen’s New York, on November 22nd, 1992; which is 25 years to the day before this comic’s release, and also the week that Superman #75 – the Death of Superman – was released. A mob gathers outside the business headquarters of Adrian Veidt, the world’s smartest, and now most wanted man, for his orchestration of the “alien” attack on New York City that resulted in over three million dead and thousands more physically injured.

The hoax revealed, the fragile peace it ushered in rapidly collapses as Russia begins an invasion of an ununited Europe; North Korea expands their nuclear capabilities to match the rearmament of other nuclear states; and the President of the United States, Robert Redford, is too busy golfing to properly respond. Dozens of media voices in the US are replaced by one Schutzstaffel logoed National News Network that prepares people for a righteous nuclear war.

Amid this chaos, Rorschach breaks out two criminals, Marionette and her partner, Mime, from prison to bring them to his new partner – Ozymandias, who again tries to cure the world, this time by bringing back its Superman.

And, in a distant land, a Superman wakes up from a nightmare.

Whether or not you think this story is a good idea, you have to admit that this issue makes a strong argument for itself. The issue echos Watchmen in the same ways Watchmen echos, well, itself; presented it’s separate threads as thematic and visual reflections of each-other. Rorschach unlocks a prisoner’s cage, releasing them; just as soldiers key into a nuclear console, unleashing armageddon.

Geoff Johns may be the only person capable of picking up Watchmen, given that his personal superpower as a writer has been his reverence of old comic stories, and ability to weave their threads into new patterns and expand them into larger universes. He’s basically doing to Watchmen’s character what he’d previously done with Barry Allen and Hal Jordan. And while Johns is an incredible talent in his own right, he’s aided by his ability to match Alan Moore’s style of dialogue; particularly in his writing of Rorschach, who switches between gorey purple-prose in his narration, and article-less laconism in his speech.

Gary Frank is a perfect artist for matching Dave Gibbons’ detail heavy illustrations, giving the book a texture and shadow-heavy tone that conveys the anxiety and dread of its world. Where the resemblance breaks is with Brad Anderson’s colors, which are more realistic and understated than John Higgins’ brightly saturated pop-art aesthetic.

Doomsday Clock’s biggest achievement so far is that, against all expectations, it fits. Johns wrote a story that, so far, makes sense as a sequel to Watchmen, and manages to infuse it with the same political resonance and thematic weight to today as the original had in the 80s.

  Batgirl #17

Then: Batgirl and Robin close in on the Mad Hatter, and rescue Ainsley from his control; and Dick keeps Barbara from crossing a line.

Now: Batgirl and Nightwing close in on the Red Queen, who has a few more tricks up her sleeve, including giant nanobots, and bringing Nightwing under her control.

I really enjoyed this entire Dick/Babs story, and this issue gives both timelines a really strong ending. The “then” timeline gives the two a solid shared experience for their relationship to start from; a time where they both needed to rely on the other to get through something incredibly taxing, physically, and mentally, but mostly emotionally. And in the present, the two work on a case recalls all those same emotions and have to rely on each-other in many of the same ways. As George Lucas might say, “it rhymes.” And Wildgoose’s art perfectly captures both the couple’s intimacy, and their emotional distance, in the two’s body language. If you’re a fan of Dick/Babs, this is a story that should be in your collection.

  Wonder Woman #35

Wonder Woman’s brother – Jason! Who he is, and how he came to be!

Glaucus begins the tale of raising Jason, Diana’s secret brother; from the day that he discovered his powers until the day Jason wouldn’t need him anymore. And from that point, Jason takes over, telling of how, even though he kept his powers a secret from the world and the mythic figures who would look for him, they found him anyway.

The most interesting part of this otherwise typical origin story is how it riffs on the familiar stories of Superman discovering and training his powers – particularly the version told in Man of Steel. Like Clark in that movie, Jason is told by his adoptive father to keep his powers hidden so that he wouldn’t be hunted for them. But, hewing a bit closer to Wonder Woman’s own origin, Glaucus does ask Hercules to train Jason, realizing that if his powers are only going to grow, he should learn how to use them, even if he shouldn’t.

Once Jason takes over narration, he tells of how hiding his powers created a hole in his life that he couldn’t quite identify until he saw how his sister – Wonder Woman – was using her powers to help people.

Unfortunately, Jason’s story ends on a cliffhanger, which means that we’re dedicating at least two issues of Wonder Woman completely to the history of this completely new, and relatively unimportant dude. Superhero comics really doesn’t need any more riffs on this origin story. We’ve seen it all, in almost every possible permutation – and we especially don’t need it taking up room in a Wonder Woman book. Also, who are Glaucus and Jason even talking to? They’re supposedly in completely different places, so…how is this even supposed to work? And if they aren’t “talking” to anyone, then why is Glaucus’ narration written phonetically?

  The Flash #35

Meena steals the Negative-Speedforce from Flash, and explains that she’s loyal to Black Hole because they’re the ones who saved her when Godspeed pulled her into the Speedforce when Barry had already written her off as dead. Then she escapes back to Black Hole’s labs, where she meets with Black Hole’s true leader – Raijin, God of Lightning.

Meanwhile, Barry and Wally finish off the rest of the Black Hole troops at the demolition derby, agreeing to work better in tandem to explore the real potential of the Speedforce to better combat Meena and Black Hole.

Kristen continues her investigation into Central City’s new crimelord at Iron Heights when she’s interrupted…

After Flash drops Wally off at home, where Wally comforts Iris; he gets a call from Warden Wolfe – there’s been a murder at Iron Heights.

This issue is an improvement over the last one, which mainly rehashed a bunch of information we already knew; but is still very exposition heavy, and does more work in introducing new plot questions than it does in making progress along already set-up plot threads. The issue’s biggest development is a return to status-quo, Barry’s got his usual powers back. Everything else is pretty much the same: Iris still needs her space from Barry; Barry and Wally are still repairing their relationship; Black Hole and the new Central City crimelord are still at large.

  Nightwing: The New Order #4

Kate Kane and the Crusade discover that Jake isn’t just immune to the power-neutralizer, his biology actively fights against it, making him that much more of a threat to the current world order.

Dick wakes up in the Titan’s secret headquarters, surrounded by Starfire, Beast Boy, Cyborg, (Kid) Flash, and Lois Lane(?), who is a Blue Lantern now. It’s not the sweetest of reunions, with there still being a lot of bad blood between Dick and the Titans, who are outlaws under the new system Dick ushered in. But, even if nothing else, they can agree on rescuing Jake – especially after their man on the inside reveals that Jake can possibly reverse everything.

And here’s where this story goes full X-Men. We got the ad-hoc family with interpersonal conflicts, the one mutant who can cure everything, the government oppressors; the whole shebang, really. Honestly, I never got into the X-Men, nor the Titans, but a good template’s a good template; and this story’s pulling it off, even if it’s really dropped the ball on some of the more resonant themes of systemic persecution in favor of more of a rescue the POW vibe.

  Black Panther #167

Shuri retrieves Dr. Franklin from a maximum security prison, legally, and brings him to Wakanda to continue their investigation into Klaw’s return. While he’s busy with that, Shuri leads T’Challa into the Djalia to learn more about Wakanda’s mythic history and the Originators. What he learns disturbs him. The Wakandans were not the native people of their land, and they did not take it peacefully.

Oofa-Doofa. This may be the heaviest reveal of Coates run so far, but one that plays directly to his strengths. Wakanda was built on genocide, their gods made as literal weapons against the native Originators. And now T’Challa, who has already recently made so many decisions to make his country – the most powerful in the world – more democratic; has to decide what to do after confronting his country’s original sin.

Basically, if you haven’t read Coates’ Case for Reparations, I suggest you do before the next issue.

  Snotgirl #8

It’s the boy’s issue!

Sunny wakes up from a weird dream where Charlene gives birth to a green puppy, and goes to meet Ashley at the sports club before he marries Meg. While the two attempt to bond over Squash, Ash tells Sunny that he’d like to bang Lottie before he marries Meg, which really gets under Sunny’s skin.

After Squash, Virgil, who’s up to something accidently walks in on the two in the locker room and gets all hot and bothered.

Ash and Sunny continue to the showers, and Ash will not shut up about sex and girls and how much he wants to bang Lottie. It’s really gross, and even Sunny wonders if he can keep up this hang-out much longer.

Meanwhile, Lottie is bored and alone, and makes it worse by texting her friends randomly; and when she runs out of those, she texts Detective John Cho – who instantly responds because he’s also thirsty for Lottie.

Later, John happens to join Sunny and Ash in the sauna, where he reveals that he’s been friends with Sunny since they were kids. Ash asks everyone about their kinks, because he’s gross as heck, and John reveals he also has a thing for girls with green hair. At this, Sunny finally loses his cool and gets into a short fight with Ash, at least until their towels fall off and it gets too weird.

Getting home, Sunny finally checks his texts.

This issue is just as meandering as usual, but the change in perspective is nice. We’re finally in the head of someone sane as opposed to Lottie’s addled narcissism. The issue is also a great look into the phenomena of “locker room talk,” in that it frames that sort of behavior as just as bad and gross even in a locker room. And to his credit, Sunny eventually does stand up for his girls instead of letting boys be boys.

AND OH BOY IS THIS ISSUE HOMO AF. Just…all the sweaty muscle boys talking about their “zords”!

Comic Reviews 11/22/17 Doomsday Clock #1 We open in Watchmen’s New York, on November 22nd, 1992; which is 25 years to the day before this comic’s release, and also the week that Superman #75 - the Death of Superman - was released.