Film Friday: James Gunn and Peter Safran's Jobs are Safe With New Owners Skydance/Paramount

Remember when Netflix was going to acquire Warner Brothers Discovery and the deal was all but done? Recall how Skydance/Paramount wouldn't quit trying to make itself the owner, and kept at it until Netflix said, "Screw it, we're out," and walked away, with Skydance/Paramount, "Winning?" Well, Skydance/Paramount has gotten past a bunch of legal questions and has maneuvered itself to being an even bigger entertainment company than ever, with the head  (David Ellison) being known as a bit of an asshole, much like his Father (a Reddit post from 12 years ago about Larry illustrates it's been this way for some time). I'm not saying that just because they're chummy with Donald Trump, the Ellisons just seem to have few fans, and many folks out there find them genuinely unpleasant. They've got a shiny new company added to their conglomerate, however, and within that company is another in the form of DC with all its comics and movies. Will the Ellisons care much about the comic-book aspect, or view it as such a tiny part of their portfolio that they let it keep chugging along (as long as it remains useful in some capacity)? I am unsure, but when it comes specifically to the DC Cinematic and television slate, nothing much is changing for now.

Yes, James Gunn and Peter Safran have been told they're welcome to keep doing what they're doing for the DCU and stay on board with SkyBrothers...Warnermount...whatever. There have been hit flicks (the latest, "Superman,"), and both the second season of, "Peacemaker," and debut season of, "Lanterns," generally have received glowing reviews (plus solid viewership). Yes, "Supergirl," was a bit of a flop, and this month's debut of, "Clayface," remains a big unknown factor in how well or poorly it could perform. However, Gunn and Safran are secure, at least, "Initially," as reports indicate--with who they report to being more of a question mark as WBD itself is seeing shakeups. I'd say the rest of 2026 and how the Superman sequel does in 2027 will determine a good deal of what exactly happens next in terms of how DC's cinematic and comic content is treated within the new SkyParaWarBroDiscovery Corp.

I'll be at the Altered State Comic Con this Sunday!

October has arrived, and it brings a bunch of great local shows throughout the month. The first one that I'm excited for, and will actually have my own table at, is the Altered State Comic Con! Being held by Altered State Comics at the Ballwin Event Center (near the golf course), they've got a bunch of great vendors lined up (besides myself) who will have comics, collectibles, original art, and more! The show is completely free to attend, and there will be raffle tickets on sale for snazzy, "Key," comics and signed ones too. I'll see you at 333 Holloway Road in Ballwin this Sunday from 12 PM to 5 PM!

What is OutKast Hinting at? How Does it Involve Waffle House?

Yesterday, Outkast put a cryptic teaser on all their social media accounts. As can be seen above, it features an image of a, "Waffle House," sign and a quote from the song, "So Fresh, So Clean." Above that was a date, 10/2/206, along with an emoji of a waffle and a space alien. Seeing this set off the conspiracy theorist in me, with few even noticing this strange teaser (?) besides some folks on social media and All Hip-Hop. As of today, some more news entities have made note of this hint of a collaboration between Big Boi, Andre 3000, and Waffle House...we're all still stumped, however.

The conspiracy theorist in me is going wild at the possible idea that there is even the smallest chance OutKast could be releasing new music as a duo. I'm figuratively frothing at the mouth at even the infinitesimal possibility of just one new track. Big Boi still releases rap projects, and Andre has been doing all kinds of interesting music experiments, so both are still out and about creating. Perhaps they felt like reuniting for something, anything? We will find out on Friday, and it could be massive news or something as unremarkably random as a themed value meal.

The Last Day of September

It is September 30th, the final day of this month. Before September concludes, I want to post what I have declared on multiple occasions to many people is my favorite meme for the month. Yes, the seal playing the saxophone cover of Green Day's tune, "Wake Me Up When September Ends.” Behold:

I am aware the song is mainly about grief and relates to Billie Joe Armstrong's loss of his father. This can be observed if one engages in even the slightest textual reading and I'm not that dense. That said, taken literally, it works too. Tomorrow it will be October, my favorite month of the year for a variety of reasons.

"Marvel Dimensons," Has Gorgeous Art, Clever Design, and a Dull Story

Alex Ross is a modern master of the comic art form. He's incredible, full stop. If Marvel Dimensions were advertised more as being just a collection of cool Alex Ross art, as opposed to telling a story, that might have been better. I say that as Ross wrote and illustrated this big hardcover story about the Marvel heroes going up against alternate-universe evil versions. It is beautiful and has some creative design elements, but the plot left me bored. I mean, when the story actually seems to be getting going, everything just kind of ends! It has been a while since some elements of a comic/graphic novel have impressed me so much while other aspects drastically underwhelmed me, I'll tell you that much.

The book opens by spending about a third of its pages running through the origins of a bunch of Marvel characters. Do we need two-page spreads breaking-down tales even casual comic readers are aware of? I mean, if this book is geared more towards newbies, fine, but a ton of space is spent retelling what many of us know...that said, it looks so darn good. Eventually it is revealed the narrator is a character Ross seems quite fond of, Machine Man/Aaron Stack (a different one than, "Earth X," which Ross also illustrated years ago and did a stellar job on). We learn from Stack about all the different possible universes, and now, halfway through the book, something thematically interesting finally happens: A small comic-book inserted within, "Marvel Dimensions," is revealed to us. A literal physical comic that readers now flip through to learn about the alternate/evil version of Marvel's heroes. They come from the, "In-Verse," and Ross' art style shifts from painterly to an intriguing, sketchy style. The story starts picking up speed, thank God.

The comic-within-a-comic is quite clever and reminds me of something Chris Ware or Michael DeForge would do (and have done). After flipping it, we watch as those corrupted/twisted heroes come to fight iterations of Marvel's heroes we know. The book segues into epic fight scenes, seems to finally be getting going, hits a Multiverse-threatening climax...and ends. We go from speeding down a metaphorical story-highway to some whiplash-inducing slamming on the brakes. It almost feels like Ross hit his page count and decided to stop right there--which makes me wonder if spending 1/3 of the book reviewing a bunch of superheroes' origins could have been perhaps skipped/slimmed down a bit so as to allow the more creative aspects of the story to breathe? Again, even those boring segments are beautiful, but there is something incredibly discouraging about a story that needs 50% of a book to get to the actual point and which abruptly ends when readers are finally getting invested in the narrative.

"Marvel Dimensions," as a showcase of the art of Alex Ross, is wonderful. As an experiment in the comic form, it is clever. As an actual comic-book story, it is incredibly frustrating. When you take this book as a whole, you don't end up with a masterpiece or a mess. This is something that anyone new to comics should like, and Alex Ross diehards will surely have fondness towards this book as well. I'd think years from now this will be a little footnote in Ross' oeuvre. Not a hit or a fiasco, just a perfectly competent example of his incredible art skills. Perhaps he should let someone else do the plotting for his next project, however.

3 out of 5 Stars.

Bendis and Gaydos Are Reuniting for, "Alias," This December

I was just posting on Friday about an older Marvel MAX comic I enjoyed, and now we get news about one of the other best ones from that era! Yes, "Alias," which was written by Brian Michael Bendis and had art by Michael Gaydos, it told the story of Jessica Jones, a detective with powers, but who isn't much of a hero or big shot in the Marvel Universe. It was superb and followed by the decent "The Pulse," before she was folded into, "New Avengers," with her eventual husband (they got married in a, "New Avengers," special), Luke Cage. Since then we've gotten some occasional mini-series with Jones, including a recent, "Red Band," series which featured a different creative team and was fine, but lacked something. Now, however, Bendis and Gaydos are back for a five-issue mini-series, "Jessica Jones: Alias," debuting this December. That will mark 25 years since Jones first appeared and went on to be a pretty popular character and even get a Netflix show with Kristen Ritter as Jones (she popped up in the recent Daredevil show's return, too).

I'm pleased to see Bendis and Gaydos back on the character they co-created and did a chunk of stellar stories with. That said, will it be a good story or feel more like Marvel returning to a well that has run dry? Plus, I'm pretty sure Marvel isn't going to let them go as far as they did back in the MAX days, so any use of the word, "Fuck" going uncensored seems unlikely. That's a little disappointing, with Jones' love of F-bombs almost being a running gag in the original comic, but by no means a huge deal if we can get some of that classic magic back via the OG creative team. We'll see this December.

A Nice Cool Day Full of Hot Finds at ToyMan!

It's finally cooled off a good deal here in Saint Louis. Within a week, we went from heat indexes in the 90s to hovering in the mid-60s or low-70s. Even if we get a couple more random days where it's strangely hot, Fall is officially here. It was nice and brisk today outside, but inside ToyMan, the show was on fire with good finds! There were some vendor tents outside, as ToyMan started doing again for the first time since the COVID era recently, and it was hopping inside too! 

I began the show by chatting with my good friend John Chaffee of Bigfoot Comics. I then had a chance to visit with Tim Metzger, who had a bunch of lovely comics for sale on this occasion. I grabbed some issues of, "Ultramega," I was in need of (at great prices), and an assortment of other fairly priced reads. As I continued browsing around (with Clarkson in tow, as he wanted to join me today and had fun riding in his little cart I pulled him along in), I caught up with Dustin & Tammy, then saw the affable Jack Thomas of Fortress Comics!

Clarkson and I proceeded around the event space, where we had a chance to chat with Tom Milister about how he'd been, and greeted some of the cool folks from Tatertot who were repping their store at the show as well! 573 Collectibles had a mix of cool comics, including some snazzy hard-to-find issues of the, "Tomb Raider," adaptation. I was pleased to see Go Getter Gamez had a smorgasbord of cool stuff they had brought, and Spike from Lost in Space Toys and Collectibles was busy with all his goodies and talking with intrigued show-goers as well! 

As Clarkson and I kept looking around, we examined some snazzy DVDs, CDs, a bunch of die-cast cars, a mix of really old and newer toys, plus we saw some cool Funko Pops (to name just some of the immense amount of stuff at every ToyMan). In the upstairs area, we had a chance to see the talented Jacqueline James--I purchased one of her new books, "Happy Hauntings." It features a variety of fun short stories for kids that aren't too scary! Give it a look:

Also upstairs were my friends Jessica Mathews and Lindsay Hornsby, each with a bunch of awesome books and merch for sale! Plus, I shot the breeze with Cayden (of Tri Fox Shoppe), a great artist who told me how he had just been at SEMOcon in Poplar Bluff and it was, "An awesome time." This gets me interested in trying to go to it next year for sure!

Today's ToyMan show was fantastic! I am excited for the next one on November 8th--and before that, there actually are a ton of October shows. Expect more posts on those as they approach and occur!

Google Maps Changed the Lady's Voice? Okay. They Forced AI Stuff Into the Browser Too? Ugh!

I booted up Google Maps today when the time came to decide the best route for an outing with Clarkson (we went and walked the Delmar Loop for fun, thanks to it being a nice and cool day). As I started driving, I noticed that she sounded different. I'm not alone in this, with various phones seeming to have this, "Feature," rolled out. It can be easy or difficult to tweak the voice as well if you want her (or him) to sound different. This isn't annoying and I can deal with change that is useful. What I'm pissed about is how the Chrome browser for iPhone (and perhaps Android) was changed some weeks ago too with the, "Gemini," AI feature shoved in our face (and browser buttons relocated).

Flashback Friday: "Supreme Power: Nighthawk," Was Great and the 2016, "Nighthawk," Deserved More Love

I recently wrote about how I was pleased that Daniel Way is happy now, even if that meant he basically quit making comics. I mentioned how my favorite thing he did was, "Supreme Power: Nighthawk," and it made me a bit nostalgic for the 2007-ish Marvel MAX (the mature readers line) mini-series. It spun out of the main, "Supreme Power," series which was one of the better things J. Michael Straczynski ever wrote, even if his characterization of Kyle Rayne/Nighthawk was extremely two-dimensional and tone deaf. "A black hero kind of like Batman who is mainly mad at white people and doesn't help them as much as black people!" was kind of how JMS portrayed the Supreme Power Nighthawk, with David Brothers long ago discussing how questionable of a characterization it was. As he observes in that piece, however, the spin-off focused on Nighthawk was a hoot. Written by Daniel Way and featuring art by Steve Dillon (may he rest in peace) as being kind of like Batman, if he were even more pissed-off and brutal. 

When we're reading, "Supreme Power: Nighthawk," we witness a smart, methodical, and brutal tactician. He helps all races, but also recognizes that people of color face a lot more systemic racism/oppression/etc. Race, class, and the, "Wrong," element of society being ignored, such as those with substance abuse issues, are all subjects touched upon when Nighthawk has to go up against an escaped serial killer that often dresses like a clown, has poisoned much of the city's illegal drug supply, and goes by, "Whiteface." You can see some clever little allusions to Batman in all of that, with much of the, "Joke," being that even if Whiteface talks about a hero and villain in some kind of complex battle of wills, Nighthawk just wants to take down a deranged killer.

When Marvel did their 2015, "Secret Wars," event, they basically destroyed the Supreme Power universe and left all of its unresolved plot threads dangling and ignored. However, Kyle/Nighthawk was one of the handful of characters from other Universes to survive and find his way into the, "Main," Marvel continuity (along with Miles Morales from the Ultimate Universe, and some other random folks). He got his own series, which was superb, barely got any readership, and was canceled with the sixth issue. It was one of my favorite (cancelled) comics of 2016. After it and a, "Squadron Supreme," series set in the 616 ended, they killed off the Supreme Power Nighthawk via the horrendous, "Secret Empire," event in a tie-in comic--so that's a bummer. Will we ever get some kind of revitalization of the, "Supreme Power," universe and its characters? Considering that ever since Disney took over Marvel and moved away from the MAX line (occasional Garth Ennis-written Punisher or Nick Fury story aside), I kind of doubt it. Sorry to end on a dour note, but for every breakout character who becomes incredibly popular, there are countless fascinating characters (at least with the writers that do a good job) who just didn't. So it goes.

The Redesigned Crypt Keeper Just Doesn't Look Quite Right

AMC is launching its Fearfest on October 1st, and for the first time in over 30 years(!) we will witness the return of the Crypt Keeper--with original voice actor John Kassir and a new puppet that looks...oh, oh no. Yes, no offense to any design studio, but when I picture the Crypt Keeper from the 1990's show, "Tales From the Crypt," that I loved in my youth and was maybe a bit too young to watch (it had more swearing and nudity than you might recall), I just don't imagine him looking like this:

His face looks like he got some kind of Botox injections, but they went awry. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad classic episodes of the show can be streamed as of recently after being stuck in copyright Hell for decades. I'm also pumped at the mere suggestion this could be a slick way to set up a new, "Tales From the Crypt," I just feel like the Crypt Keeper looks a bit wrong. At least the hair is still messy; that is something I appreciate, as I have an in-joke with my mom about how, whenever her hair is all disheveled, she looks like a younger iteration of the Crypt Keeper! Don't worry, she finds it funny too. Anyways, the Crypt Keeper is back, and that's great even if he resembles a Real Housewife with botched plastic surgery.