Quoth the sage, Huey Lewis: “The power of love is a curious thing.” Indeed, our movies, books and comics are full of examples where love makes all the difference, from the inexplicably metaphysical climax of ‘Rent’ to Marty McFly’s continued survival while meddling with cosmic forces beyond his ken. Indeed, even when it doesn’t make sense (or, in the case of Ally Sheedy’s makeover scene in ‘The Breakfast Club’, if it’s directly contrary to the lesson the movie claims to be imparting) love makes the world go around. Die Hard gets reunited with his wife, The Green Ranger is redeemed…
Browsing: Question Of The Day
Thanks to my cousin Elwood, who discovered comic books a couple of years before me, one of the first superheroes I was exposed to was Carol Danvers. (For the minutiae-obsessed, it was the Marvel Team-Up issue where she first wore her black lightning-bolt uniform.) Some decades later, both Carol and I have graduated to more adult activities, in that she’s now Captain Marvel and I’m… …still a nerd talkin’ comic books. A concerted push to bring Carol Danvers to the forefront of the Marvel Universe began right around the turn of the century, and frankly, it hasn’t always been successful. …
I have always had a soft spot in my heart for Starfire, the golden-skinned alien warrior of the Teen Titans. Maybe it’s her joyful nature, or her love of adventure, or maybe it’s partly her beauty, contrasting the fierce warrior within. Either way, she is always near the top of any list of Alien Heroes, right up there with Lar Gand of Daxam, Mar-Vell of Hala and even the gold standard, planet Bismoll’s favorite son, Tenzil Kem. Unusually for me, I even love her animated adaptation, whose stilted English is endearing as heck, leading us to today’s extraterrestrial query… The MS-QOTD…
It’s a time-tested adage of the innernets: Everybody has their opinion on who makes the best Batman, with choruses of ‘Kevin Conroy!”, “Christian Bale!” and “Adam West!” and nine guys interjecting with “Val Kilmer!” With all this discussion of the Dark Knight, there is sometimes no spotlight left over for his partner, the Teen Wonder himself, best known for being played by a 22-year-old man. It’s a shame, since there are considerably MORE Robins to choose from (at least six in the comics, as well as weirdo one-offs like ‘Robin 3000’) than there are iterations of the big bad Bat,…
For a while, around the turn of the century, the wrestlers of ‘Attitude Era’ WWE (Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Chyna and others) had their own comic book series from Chaos! Comics. The quality of the books varied (Undertaker’s was a pretty wild ride, casting him as a literal lord of the underworld enmeshed in an ongoing war for the souls of the dead) but the synergy of the thing was well-timed, given the popularity of wrestling circa 1999. Indeed, the excitement about those books was (temporarily) high, just as it was about Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Season 8,…
When it comes to arguments, nobody loves a big stupid one like the internet. In the last couple of years, I’ve seen some of the most banal things create unbelievable strife, from the color of a dress to the imaginary school sect you should belong to. But worst of all, the one that pitted brother versus brother, tore families apart and left everyone frustrated and angry was whether or not to describe a hot dog as a sandwich… …and now, we can ALL fight about it, leading us to today’s meat-on-bread query… The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) has never…
This year marks the 50th Anniversary of a lot of things, but the one that matters most to me is the Golden Anniversary of ‘The Monkees.’ Having recently lost one of the group makes it a slightly bittersweet celebration, but the idea of a new album and tour by the surviving members is more than worth the price of admission, especially given that a number of other talented creators are getting involved in the production of the new songs. (Davy Jones will apparently appear as well, through already-recorded voice tracks from before his death.) Having not had any new Monkees…
Fans of TV superheroes might be pleased to know that the rumors of a cross-network Flash/Supergirl crossover are no longer just rumors, and that the two heroes will be meet face-to-face. This has immediately caused questions of how the established world of Arrow/Flash gives with a Superman already on Earth, and whether the two series can take place on the same world. The argument that “Nobody has ever mentioned Superman” is true, but nobody has mentioned One Direction, Jack Nicholson or Victoria’s Secret either, which doesn’t mean they can’t exist. Either way, it brings up today’s good, if perhaps divisive,…
In a winter full of hiatuses and fill-in ahows, i am happy to report that ‘The Venture Brothers’ returned to television this week, after an absence of nearly two and a half years. This honestly couldn’t have come at a better time for ne, as I’ve been carefully rationing my ‘Steven Universe’reruns to fill a weary hour. (Technically a quarter-hour, but why be that guy?) With Steven episodes arriving in short bursts followed by radio silence, we fans are left adrift for months at a time, leaving Rodrigo to marathon earlier eps, while I mine the heaviest continuity moments for…
My Sunday consisted of a marathon of ‘Good Times’ episodes from the early 70s, shows which my daughter sat enthralled to watch for several hours, including singing along with the theme song and shouting “THIS SHOW IS SOOOO GOOD!” at regular intervals. Knowing that she appreciated the subtle acting charms of Esther Rolle, the less-subtle gruffness of John Amos and the not-at-all subtle Jimmie Walker mugging somehow made me feel proud, remembering the days when I watched the show as a kid. Even with the periodic explanations of the 70s (how prices were a little bit different due to inflation,…
News broke this week about DC Comics’ plan to revamp and rejigger the classic Hanna Barbera cartoon properties, including the very divisive decision to do an updated Scooby Doo with modern references, in what seems to be a post-apocalyptic world. Given how good ‘Afterlife With Archie’ has been, I think it is foolish to immediately dismiss such a story as unworkable, but it is a major change for a property as old as I am. Still, 45 years is a long time, and the possibility that a hipster Shaggy with what may be a partially cybernetic Scooby fighting against the…
In 2011, when DC relaunched their comic-book universe, the characters of Jim Lee’s Wildstorm Publishing (originally part of the Image Comics line back in ’93) were folded into the new iteration of the DC Universe, allowing the likes of Spartan and Mr. Majestic to stand side-by-side with Red Tornado and Superman. Though few of the Wildstorm characters still have their own titles (Is Midnighter still being published?), it was interesting to see their world history become part of the oldest continuing shared universe, leading me to wonder what Youngblood would be like in the Marvel Universe or how different the…
If you’ve ever seen a flip phone or used a touch-screen tablet, you already know the effect that fifty years of Star Trek have had on real-world technology. Though we don’t have a transporter (yet), many an internet wag has commented on the parallels between communicators and wireless communication, or replicators and 3-D printers, and who doesn’t love a breakaway velour pullover? Heck, my minivan even looks like the TOS shuttlecraft (though that’s not even the same thing, like AT ALL), leading us to today’s prescient query… The MS-QOTD (pronounced “bay-lah and low-keye”) really wants a holodeck for… …reasons, asking: Which…
As someone who grew a goatee in the early 1990s (I went to a Halloween party as ‘The Evil Me From The Mirror Universe’) and never shaved, I have no illusions of beardly glory. To be blunt, I’d look awful with the currently fashionable coal miner/goat beard anyway and I can’t really pull off a glorious Steve Austin policeman’s mustache, so it’s probably my best option. When it comes down to it, perhaps my favorite fictional beard belongs to Violet from ‘Rat Queens’ (she shaved it off before it was cool), but metafictionally speaking, it’s all about the luxurious sideburns…