Covers, covers, covers, OH MY. (2004) Superman #203, Michael Turner. (2004) Superman / Batman #13 Michael Turner Darkseid Variant. (1993) The Maxx #1, Sam Kieth. (1991) Marvel Comics Presents #94, Sam Kieth.

Very disturbing.

Beautiful work, Iv always loved that painterly style in comics, like Alex Ross and E. M. Gist. 👍👍

I sure hope so.

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

😳I need more Power Girl in my life.

Very cool, and nice to see you using traditional media. Love seeing original art in person done with Ink and paper. And once you get noticed, it’s not bad for the bank account either.

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

Sam has the title and shield, but Steve retains the essence of Captain America, no one can replace him in my opinion.

I'm thinking it may be Julia Louis-Dreyfus who plays Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Val). She is always doing some underhanded thing involving superhero tech. She was maybe involved in this version of Vision from the start and wants him back, or is trying to acquire him for the tech. Just a guess—we shall see.

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…

You know, umm, I like Glen Powell. I recently enjoyed his Chad Powers on Hulu. But I don't think he has enough gravitas and grittiness to pull off the role of Bruce Wayne/Batman.

Groundhog Day.

Wasn't trying to stick it to anyone—just thought he was missing some context that would help fill out his opinion on the show. I always try to come from a place of honesty and stay away from tribalistic thinking. If I think something is well done, regardless of who made it, I'll say so (same when something sucks), but always with a respectful take and not in a mean, confrontational way. We need more bridge builders in these times.

Absolutely one of my favorite movies. I heard rumors there was going to be a sequel about his daughter, but then crickets since then.

Yeah but the thing is, this is not the original Mind Stone Vision from the movies. He is the rebuilt White Vision from the end of WandaVision. After Thanos ripped the Mind Stone out in Infinity War, S.W.O.R.D. reconstructed the body. At the end of WandaVision, the Hex Vision unlocked the original memories and transferred them into this body before it flew away. So yes, he has the memories of the old Vision, but he does not have the emotional connections or resonance that went with them. He’s essentially a new being trying to reconcile with a past that doesn’t fully feel like his own. That’s why the show is centered on an identity crisis instead of pure “go save the world with density control and solar beams.” He’s also not operating at full strength. Early on he takes heavy damage from adamantium rounds and sonic/EMP-style traps. His systems start failing, internal AIs are at risk, and he needs repairs (including a full reboot). By the time he fights the new android (Jocasta), he’s already compromised and not fighting with a full deck. Losing that fight is tied to his damaged state, not just “they made a woman stronger than the male hero." I think VisionQuest is doing great so far with the first 4 episode and is headed in the right direction, don't get me wrong I hate woke slop as well, and it seems like that's all we get anymore, but I think this show is an exception. We still have more to go so who knows, but for now I am optimistic about this show and looking forward to the rest of the season.

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?

Dude the nipples...lmao. This is awesome.