This is my blog, I guess, where I'll tell you about the things I think are cool and interesting. I love comic book superheroes, comic art, sci-fi, fantasy, movies, and TV shows. You know, all the cool shit we waste our time on. I thought this might be a place for information about all those things, but now I think it's just a place to get it all out of my head so I don't go crazy. If that interests you, stick around. If not, there's a whole big internet out there to get lost in. Bye!

This is exactly it. When one group of tastemakers decides what gets published, and Szetela notes 70% of Big Five editors are women, the stories start leaning one way. When identity politics gets folded in, storytelling takes the back seat in books, movies and games alike. A masculine novel praised by a National Book Award winner can't find a home, and then people wonder why men stopped reading. Men didn't stop reading. Publishing stopped making books for them. A lot of the push gets sold as kindness and compassion, but underneath it's about control and conformity. The people steering it know it's costing them readers. They've just decided culture matters more than sales.

Heads up, Batman fans! I know the Absolute line gets most of the hype right now, and honestly it deserves a lot of it. But don't sleep on the main Batman book. Matt Fraction and Jorge Jiménez have been killing it since they relaunched it with #1 back in September 2025. Now something big is coming. Batman #15 lands Nov 4 with "The Assassination of Bruce Wayne." Six assassins go after Bruce at a masked gala, and by the end of the night, Bruce Wayne dies in front of the whole world. That leads into #17 in January, where Batman starts over with two brand-new identities. DC says both "rhyme with 'Batman.'" The art from Jiménez, Dustin Nguyen, and Jim Cheung shows him in creepy, Cthulhu-looking armor, swinging a vicious machete. 🦇 If you've been waiting for a good time to jump on, this is it. Grab #15 and enjoy the ride. screenrant.com/batman-new-co… Jim Cheung Variant

Is Wildwood the last great stop-motion movie before AI takes over? Laika's Wildwood hit theaters yesterday, and it might be the most handmade movie of the year. Travis Knight directed it, and it took 16 years to get here. The studio built 231 puppets and 136 sets, some big enough for the crew to walk through. Every puppet got a new 3D-printed face on every single frame, more than 140,000 faces in all. One golden eagle puppet has about 9,000 feathers, all put in by hand. Critics are loving it: 100% on Rotten Tomatoes and an A CinemaScore. The opening is soft, though. It's tracking around $11-13M, right about where Kubo opened. Time Out called it "the perfect handmade antidote to AI." That's why I'm rooting for it. Stop motion goes back to the very beginnings of animation. Someone moves a tiny figure a fraction of an inch, shoots a frame, and does it again thousands of times. That takes real dedication. Knight was asked whether AI could have sped the process up. He said "That very notion fills me with rage." He also told The Verge: "A pencil is technology, a paintbrush is technology, a 3D printer is technology... But all of these things have meaning and value when you put them in the hands of an artist." His line is that when the tech does the artist's work, "there's no soul, there's no spirit." I'm with him. I'm not completely against AI, but I'm for the artist. I know it's on the horizon, and at some point it's going to be unavoidable. Knight even admitted he can only say Wildwood is AI-free "as far as I'm aware," because big VFX houses don't always say what they use. That's exactly why a movie like this matters. It's proof of what people can make with their own hands, time and heart. Knight is one of the most creative filmmakers working today. He made Kubo and the Two Strings and Bumblebee, and I really liked Masters of the Universe this summer. We need more voices like his, not endless AI slop from prompts that all looks the same. Stories should come from people. So go see it. Will handmade movies like this survive, or is Wildwood the last of its kind? theverge.com/entertainment/1…

For today's covers, I'm going to do a little rundown of these four covers. This was a four-issue run in New X-Men centered around Weapon plus and Fantomex, by Grant Morrison and penciler Chris Bachalo, who drew the hell out of these four issues. His art is so dynamic and interesting that I encourage everyone to check it out. New X-Men #142 New X-Men #143 New X-Men #144 New X-Men #145

Magic: The Gathering is finally coming to Netflix, and I'm kind of looking forward to it. Full disclosure: I've never been a huge Magic guy. I played it briefly, collected a few cards, and never really got into it. But I love fantasy and fantastical worlds, so for me this is just one more world to get lost in. Here's what we know. Hasbro's CEO just told CNBC the animated series should debut at the end of next year, so late 2027. Netflix first announced it back in 2019 with the Russo brothers producing. It got written, recorded, and then scrapped. In 2024 Netflix brought it back with Terry Matalas as showrunner (the guy who gave us Picard Season 3) and Oscar winner Patrick Osborne as supervising director. The story centers on Chandra, the fire mage, with Ajani and Jace as main characters too. So do fans care about the lore? Some really do. There's a passionate group of true lore lovers. But most players seem to want the vibe and the feel of Magic done right. As one Redditor put it: "I don't care about the lore at all, but the general tone or thematic identity is very important." Another said they'd love for it "to be the next Arcane." Matalas building it around one character and bringing in others "one by one" sounds like the right way in. I'll be honest, I have my doubts with Netflix. They've leaned into message over story more than once. But they're in a rough patch right now. They just laid off about 1,000 people, around 6% of the company. Their chief content officer, Bela Bajaria, is out after nearly 10 years, and former Disney TV chief Peter Rice is taking over. Their stock just hit a two-year low after earnings, and co-CEO Ted Sarandos admitted "we could do better." A shake-up at the top could change things, for better or worse. We don't know yet. Maybe this is where they right the ship. Could Magic compete with Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones? CBR thinks it could. The fan base is huge, and the multiverse gives it endless places to go. But a lot of those fans are jaded and tired of being treated like what they want doesn't matter. Win them over and this could be massive. I'm hoping for the best. Give us great characters, wild worlds, and a story that respects the people who've loved this thing for 30 years. Would you watch it? Which Planeswalker do you want to see first? cbr.com/netflix-magic-the-ga…

Ellison handed Paramount+ to HBO, and I'm not sure that adds up. When David Ellison took over Paramount, he said "I don't want to politicize this company. We're an entertainment company first." He told the FCC there'd be no DEI programs, he put an ombudsman at CBS, and he made Bari Weiss editor-in-chief of CBS News. TheWrap even reported that under Ellison, Trek's "unabashedly progressive stance" is out and Yellowstone-style shows are in. Then the WBD merger closed, and who's running all the streaming content? HBO's Casey Bloys. Paramount+'s head of originals is gone, and every top exec under Bloys is from HBO, including the head of HBO Max originals, who now runs Paramount+ originals too. Ellison has said publicly that "HBO should stay HBO" and should operate "with independence." So is Ellison actually anti-woke? Honestly, the record is mixed. His dad Larry is the big Trump backer: WSJ reports he gave about $45M to a pro-Trump group in 2024. David himself gave nearly $1M to Biden's reelection fund that same year. To me, Ellison reads more like a businessman than a culture warrior. He makes the moves that get deals approved and hires the people who win awards. To be fair, HBO's shows do pull viewers. Lanterns drew 9.3M viewers in its first 3 days, and critics loved it. But I'd bet most of those viewers never read the comics, because the fans who did mostly walked away disappointed. Metacritic users gave it a 5.2. The actors gave it everything they had. The problem was the story. It traded the cosmic wonder of Green Lantern for a gritty True Detective mood, and by the end Hal and John looked more like criminals than heroes. That's not Green Lantern. My issue isn't politics in stories. Themes are fine when they serve the story. My issue is when the message comes first and the entertainment comes second. Most of us watch to escape for a while, not to get lectured. Ellison's line is "If you're breathing, you're our audience." The next Trek show will be the real test of that. Give us episodic exploration, a great crew and real dilemmas, and I'm in. People roll their eyes when you bring up "woke," like you're just being negative or nitpicking. But woke used to mean something good. It meant being awake to the problems in the world and wanting to do something about them. That's not what it is anymore. Now it feels like an ideology being pushed on us, one that's trying to change who we are instead of telling a good story. It leans toward collectivist politics and a constant focus on sexuality and identity, and it shows up on screen far more than it does in real life. You can be concerned about that without being a hater. Caring about what our culture puts in front of us isn't nitpicking. It matters. A lot of people are saying woke is dead. I don't think it's dead. I think it's changing its form: new owners, new titles, the same people deciding what stories get told. So what's the future of entertainment? Will we ever get back to stuff that just entertains, or is it more of the same cultural manipulation and propaganda?

This might become a daily thing, more cool covers from my collection I like.

If you need something to get the bad taste of HBO's Lanterns out of your mouth and your mind, And for those of you who liked the show, these books will show you what you missed and what was left out. Maybe then you'll see why people like me were extremely disappointed with it. Add these two to your list of things to buy. They're a great reminder of what makes Green Lantern good. Green Lantern Rebirth: DC Compact Comics Edition. It's 352 pages for just $9.99, with an Alex Ross cover. Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver brought Hal Jordan back the right way: a cocky, fearless test pilot taking on Sinestro and the Manhunters. It's cheap, affordable and the perfect starting point. Coming out in 2027, but other versions can be found on amazon now. Green Lantern: Blackest Night Compendium. It's 1,480 pages of Johns' epic for $59.99, out March 16 2027, with art by Ivan Reis, Doug Mahnke and Patrick Gleason. It covers the whole emotional spectrum, the Black Lanterns and the entire saga in one book. Not a bad deal for 1,480 pages if you ask me. I'll be picking these up for myself. This is Green Lantern with heart, huge cosmic scale and real respect for the lore. It's everything the show completely lacked. In brightest day, in blackest night…

Star Wars: Starfighter, starring Ryan Gosling. I'm a big Star Wars fan and a Ryan Gosling fan, so on paper this should be an easy win for me. But honestly, I'm not sure Disney knows how to make a Star Wars movie these days. I wasn't a big fan of the sequels. The last movie, The Mandalorian & Grogu, It wasn't that bad, but I would have preferred another season instead. It made about $346 million worldwide, the lowest for any live-action Star Wars film ever. Now Starfighter is shaping up to be an expensive bet. Reports put the budget at $226.5 million before marketing, a little more than The Force Awakens cost at the same stage. It also feels like I've been hearing about this movie forever. Shawn Levy's Star Wars film was first reported back in November 2022, and it doesn't hit theaters until May 28, 2027. That's about four and a half years, that's a long time to stay pumped about something. There are reasons for hope, though. It's a standalone story with all-new characters, set about five years after The Rise of Skywalker, with a strong cast that includes Matt Smith, Mia Goth, Aaron Pierre and Amy Adams. The fans who saw the D23 teaser said it had a quality feel that's been missing from live-action Star Wars lately. So I want to be optimistic. I really do. But I've got my worries and doubts. Here's hoping this one reminds Disney what made us fall in love with that galaxy far, far away.

Just sharing some cool covers from my collection. I grabbed these off LOCG so I don't have to dig through my short boxes.

Star Trek: The Next Generation was HUGE in my house growing up. My mom loved that show, and I spent my formative years watching it with her. Since then I've watched every series they've made: Deep Space Nine, Voyager, all the way up to what we have today. And honestly? Today's Trek looks almost nothing like the shows I grew up on. Those older shows still had a lot to say about humanity and progress. But they respected their audience, and they said it in an intelligent way that made you think. Today's Star Trek doesn't respect its fans, or people in general. It talks down to us like we're dumb plebs who need to be taught a lesson for our own good. It feels like it's been captured by the radical side of our society and turned into a tool to push gender and LGBTQ ideology, and that's caused major pushback. Not because fans aren't progressive (Trek fans have always been progressive), but because it plays more like an angry lecture than a story worth telling. Trek used to trust us. I miss that. So where does Star Trek go from here? Even the people behind it admit it's at a crossroads. The current shows are wrapping up, and with Skydance's Paramount and HBO's Warner Bros. coming together, nobody really knows what happens to Trek next. A new movie is supposedly still in development, but that's about all we know. Here's my take: if they don't get back to respecting the fans and viewers, they could very well kill this franchise. And that would be a damn shame. Star Trek has had a huge impact on our society. For generations it gave people real hope for the future, a picture of who we could become if we got it right. It would be a tragedy to lose that because the people in charge forgot who they were making it for. variety.com/2026/tv/global/s…

HBO and DC are kicking around a Poison Ivy series, with Lauren LeFranc from The Penguin in talks to produce. Good. The Penguin was great: real character work, a villain you couldn't look away from, and 9 Emmys to show for it. But it got me thinking about why DC keeps hitting with some things and missing with others. DC does fine with grounded, gritty, real-world stories. The Penguin nailed it, and Batman works to a degree. The problem starts when the story is fantastical. Superman, Supergirl, Lanterns: these are big, colorful, geeky characters, and DC treats them like it can't stand that. Instead of embracing what makes them special, they try to turn them into something they're not. In the process they insult the fans who love these stories. Supergirl made about $126 million worldwide on a budget around $170 million or more, and Lanterns was an absolute bastardization of Green Lantern lore, and it turned Hal and John into completely unlikable versions of their comic selves. Fantastical isn't something to be embarrassed about. It's the whole point. So maybe Ivy will work, since she fits that grounded, villain-driven lane. But until DC learns to respect the fantastical side of its universe, and hands these projects over to people who actually like the characters and stories they're being hired to make. I won't hold my breath.

Spoiler warring. For a while now, watching TV has felt like wandering the desert. Show after show is either nihilistic and depressing, or it tosses out the source material and hands us something that's just crap. You start to forget what good television even tastes like. Then VisionQuest shows up like a cool, clean drink of water. My thirst is finally quenched. Four episodes in, this show is good. It's not pushing an ideology at me. It's just competent, great writing: poetic dialogue, great characters and a compelling story that takes its time in a way that keeps you leaning in. At its heart, it asks one of the oldest questions there is: what makes us human? Vision is a synthetic being searching for his humanity, his identity and his place in the world. Are we born with those qualities, or do they come from the connections we make with family, with the people around us and with the world itself? Watching him try to figure out exactly who he is turns that question back on us too. It's nuanced, and it never beats you over the head. And the way they show his mind is brilliant. In the real world, maybe a nanosecond goes by. Inside his head, it's a whole virtual space where he talks with the other AIs, works things out like a detective and runs simulations, living through what could be years of research in the blink of an eye. They found a way to put that quantum-speed thinking on screen so you can actually step into it and experience it. That's creative filmmaking. And the world keeps growing. The killer synthetic stalking these episodes, played by T'Nia Miller, isn't made up for the show. She's Jocasta, straight out of Marvel's comics, where she first showed up in Avengers #162 back in 1977 as the robot bride Ultron built. The show gives her a fresh twist: she's a human scientist's mind living in a machine body. That fits right into the show's big question about what makes us human. They even tip their hat to the original Human Torch, the very first android in Marvel history. The writers clearly know and respect the source material, and it shows. This is the way TV should be written. If they keep this up, Vision quest just may become the best marvel show Disney will put out. It's something we've been craving and not getting. If you've been dying of thirst like me, go drink up.

New Comic Book Day is tomorrow, 10/21/26! Thought I'd show off some cool covers I spotted. I'm not necessarily getting all of these books, I just love sharing cool covers. Here are some.

LeSean Thomas has been quietly building one of the coolest résumés in animation. He worked on The Boondocks and Black Dynamite, then created Cannon Busters and Yasuke, and now he's back with Bass X Machina on Netflix, Nov 3. It's about Bass Reeves, a real man who was born enslaved, escaped, and became the first Black deputy U.S. Marshal. A lot of people say he's the real inspiration for the Lone Ranger. LeSean takes that legend and goes full sci-fi with it: a cyborg lawman with a gun arm in a steampunk Wild West full of outlaws, machines and monsters. Studio Mir (Devil May Cry, Korra) is on animation, and it looks bombastic. What I respect is where he's coming from. The guy clearly loves sci-fi, fantasy and anime, and he's said that we just haven't seen many Black animated heroes "created by us." He's not complaining about it, he's out here making them. Brian Tyree Henry, who voices Bass, called it "the first Black western anime ever made." Is it going to be for everyone? Probably not. But a real-life legend turned into a steampunk cyborg gunslinger is a pitch I'm willing to give a shot. Anyone else checking this out? awn.com/news/judge-jury-and-…

When I first heard about Midnight X-Men my interest peaked, and then when I heard it was about vampires, that interest hit a wall. Vampires are so overdone. They were cool for a while, but they've gotten stale. I got it anyway because I'm a FOMO guy. After reading it, I'm not bored. The new mutant vamps are done well, and the story is shaping up to be complicated: the church, warring factions of vamps, and mutants who haven't turned trying to cure their friends. Hickman says it's "not doing Krakoa stuff," and he's planning complete six-issue stories with a big shake-up every twelve. Plus Cyclops is a badass again. I'm eager for the next issue. Now on to Spider-Man. It's not my favorite, for the simple reason that I hate spiders, and you get some pretty graphic spider horror imagery. But the story is promising so far, so I'll push through this one, gross spider stuff and all. And now Fantastic Four. This was my most anticipated one because of the interdimensional and space angle, which I thought was perfect for a Lovecraftian horror story. That's exactly what we're getting, since Percy's Galactus is a Lovecraft-style monster and the team won't get their powers right away. I'm looking forward to that one a lot. Of the three new books in this horror launch, Marvel's shot at competing with DC's Absolute line, X-Men caught me off guard the most, and it's my top book.

OK, can we talk about Apple TV for a sec? Somewhere along the way it became my go-to for sci-fi, and honestly, they're killing it right now. Nobody else is even close. Just look at this lineup: Severance, Silo, For All Mankind, Foundation, Pluribus, Murderbot, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, and Dark Matter. Like, come on. Mind-bending office horror, an underground post-apocalyptic mystery, an alternate-history space race, Asimov's Foundation finally on screen, a grumpy robot who just wants to binge its shows in peace, and freaking Godzilla. Every one of these feels like it was made by people who actually give a shit about sci-fi. If you love this stuff and you're not watching Apple TV, what are you doing? Seriously, go fix that.

Comics taught me to read. Tolkien kept me reading.

Growing up as a kid in the 80s, one of the most memorable things was getting up early to watch Saturday morning cartoons. Among that wonderful batch of colorful animated cels was ThunderCats. The fluid animation was eye-catching, the music, the voice acting, the SNARFS. What a wonderful cartoon, and what a time. Which brings me to what's happening in comics right now. ThunderCats has had a resurgence over the last few years, and it's led up to this interesting comic coming out this New Comic Book Day Oct 21: ThunderCats #1 from @DynamiteComics, with Greg Pak writing and @DavidCousens on art. It's a new take on a classic. Lion-O turns into a "Feral King," which is a bold move for a guy already shaped like a lion. I'll be picking this one up and giving it a try. And check out that A cover by Mark Spears. Isn't it a beauty?