6 Questions about New Warriors

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Edited by Robert Beach

Something peculiar about the story of Marvel Studios, the little comic book company that dreamed of making movies, is how well they’ve managed to wipe clean people’s memories of their failures. As far as the general public is concerned, Marvel has never failed, more or less cemented themselves as an unstoppable blockbuster juggernaut and America’s cinematic guardian. This takes a lot of mental editing when you take into account how often Marvel has let us down. And nowhere has that been more evident than in their many botched attempts at Network TV. 

After three seasons of diminishing viewership, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. needed to bring in Ghost Rider to resurrect season 4. Their Most Wanted spin-off fell through, and most of Marvel’s “in the works” TV projects seemed to have stalled. This all got so bad that Marvel allegedly met with ABC about what their future in television held. It seems we now have our answer in the form of The New Warriors and also Squirrel Girl.

Static Thoughts - The Thick of It, In the Loop, & VEEP

A couple of weeks ago HBO’s VEEP concluded its 4^th season.  This marks the end of showrunner and creator Armando Iannucci’s phenomenal work on the series as season 5 will see the show enter a period of new leadership.  This also marks the conclusion to a 10 year cycle of Iannucci’s in the realm of televised political comedy.  Iannucci first entered this domain in 2005 with The Thick of It, a political comedy show that revolved around a minister in the fictional British cabinet position of Secretary for Social Affairs.  The show proved popular, lasting for 3 seasons and 2 specials from 2007-2009 when it spun off into a feature film called In the Loop. 

In the Loop marked the first shift over from Iannucci towards American politics in addition to the previous British focusing, revolving around the misadventures of Simon Foster, secretary for international development, who is caught up in pre-war fervor surrounding the launch of the Iraq War.  After a fourth season of The Thick of It co-produced through Hulu Iannucci made the full transition to American politics with HBO’s VEEP in 2012.  With VEEP’s conclusion now seems like a good time to examine Iannucci’s ultimate commentary on American politics compared to England.