Andy Weir’s The Martian was one of the best books I read last year. If you haven’t read it yet, go do so, immediately. Trust me. In broad terms, it’s the story of an astronaut who gets stranded alone on Mars during a near-future NASA mission, and all the stuff he has to do to […]

Yes, it’s been almost a month since I posted anything. I’ve been busy. And overwhelmed. And stressed. And engaging in copious business travel involving the wearing of suits on the subway when it’s 90 degrees outside. Not cool. Life’s getting in the way. Pffft. I totally missed my traditional First of May and Star Wars […]

Yes, I know it’s fake (we all got it straight from Joss’s mouth). I’m almost sad about this, because this forty seconds or so gets Spider-Man right in a way that five films and two different Spider-Men didn’t. We can only hope that when Marvel films finally does introduce Spider-Man, it’s at least this good:

Like a lot of latchkey Gen-Xers in the 80s, I spent a lot of time with the TV babysitter. The early 80s was also the advent of cable TV, complete with the old style plastic woodgrain channel-changey boxes and all that. In what must have been ’83 or ’84, we had HBO for a while. […]

There’s a long tradition of the “big two” comic companies taking friendly swipes at each other; Marvel gently mocking the “Distinguished Competition” in it’s letters pages and “Bullpen Bulletins”, and DC pulling some similar stunts in their own, slightly more serious way officially (but being just as jocular unofficially). In the print world, it’s always […]

So, things are maybe getting back to normal after the 5 inches of snow shut down most of Virginia for a week. The kids were off of school for five unplanned days, my office was closed one day (though I still ended up working – yay telework…not), all kinds of activities were cancelled for everyone, […]

Spider-Man writer Dan Slott recently did an interview about the Marvel Cinematic Univers, specifically commenting on the recent news about Spider-Man, the character he’s been shepherding since 2008 (and before, if you count the excellent Spider-Man/Human Torch: I’m With Stupid limited series back in ’05). As usual, the guy’s right on about about a lot […]

As people (including me) have been speculating for months, a press release from Marvel Entertainment yesterday made things official: Spider-Man will join the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Looks like it’s a collaborative arrangement, with Sony continuing to produce and finance the Spider-Man films, though in collaboration with Marvel Films, who will help to shape the creative […]

“The most important thing about the Fantastic Four is that this is a movie about a family.” -Josh Trank So I watched that teaser trailer the other day. It was interesting; it sure looked pretty, even if it didn’t quite look like the Fantastic Four (I refuse to acknowledge FANT4STIC at all except to dismiss […]

Because some significant superhero media news came out on Monday, and I have thoughts! ♦- David Tenant as Zebediah Kilgrave/Purple Man in AKA Jessica Jones (I’m calling it that, even if it doesn’t end up being called that; it’s a great title for a long-in-development property) series going to Netflix is really good casting. I’m […]