CW Announces Crisis on Earth-X Crossover

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I don’t think we really appreciate how genuinely good the CWniverse has actually turned out to be.  For a collection of series dramas with wildly variant budgets cooked up by the network that gave us One Tree Hill and 90210, the CWniverse is a staggeringly excellent achievement that I think will be looked back on the same way we remember Adam West’s Batman or Linda Carter’s Wonder Woman.  

It’s a great collection of adaptation that really understands that it’s the characterization and drama that have made superheroes so compelling for 80 years and counting, so it’s only fitting that they would do a wedding episode. 

Yes, this year’s crossover event between The Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, and Arrow has been revealed as a wedding story about the marriage of Barry Allen and Iris West, the central romance on The Flash.  However, in the grand tradition of comic book weddings, this particular matrimony is to be interrupted by unwelcome visitors from the multiverse/CW Seed in the form of the Ray.  

Making his jump from animation to live action the Ray, CW’s first gay character, is set to appear in the wedding episode, hotly pursued by villain’s from Earth-X, a world where the Nazis won WW2 and Supergirl, Flash, and Green Arrow are all Nazi Supermen.  Let’s talk Crisis on Earth-X.

Static Thoughts - Star Trek 'Patterns of Force'

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So, the current mega-event that’s set to dominate comic book stores from Marvel this summer is one Secret Empire.  I don’t want to get too bogged down in the details because the discussion surrounding this event is more toxic than a nuclear spill, largely because the core of the series is all about Nazis and Nazi collaborators.  There’s been a lot of back and forth about this from the top minds on the Internet, but the whole thing got me thinking about one of the stranger corners of the Star Trek universe. 

I’m speaking of course about ‘Patterns of Force,’ a season 2 episode of the original series that famously featured a planet of alien Nazis and when I say “alien Nazis” I mean that quite literally.  The episode set Spock and Kirk against a mysterious humanoid species out in space that sported a direct copy of the Nazi regime from Earth.  It’s a weird mystery episode that’s always held an odd place in Trek canon, with particular scenes coming to be definitive of the TOS era in our collective memory while the rest has become banished to obscurity. 

Panel Vision - What If? #28-29

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As I write this, Agents of SHIELD is gearing up to do an entire episode in honor of the classic Marvel “What If?” format.  This was a whole comic series dedicated to asking bizarre questions about altered Marvel continuity like what if Daredevil had killed Kingpin or what if the X-Men died on their first mission.  

It was a popular series during the ‘70s and ‘80s with a handful of revivals around big events in recent years.  Speaking of big events, Marvel’s current big event for the summer is something called Secret Empire, in which Captain America reveals himself to be a Hydra agent after some reality warping shenanigans from a previous comic. 

The pitch has caused a lot of discourse; most of it I’d like to avoid getting into here.  However the subject of altered reality, evil Nazi Captain America, and What If comics reminded me of one of the greatest What If two-parters of all time- What If Captain America had Led an Army of Super-Soldiers in World War II and What If Captain America had formed the Avengers.  Obviously, there’s more going on than the titles or covers suggest so follow me into one of the darkest and most compelling and well written altered continuity stories this side of Superman: Red Son. 

What the Spear of Destiny means for Legends of Tomorrow

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If you’re watching Legends of Tomorrow, the mid-season finale this year revealed a pretty significant plot point for both the show and the CWniverse as a whole.  It was shown that this season’s villains, the Legion of Doom, are in search of the Spear of Destiny, an incredibly powerful mystic artifact.  They explain in the episode that the Spear, more commonly known as the Spear of Longinus, is the same Spear that the Roman soldier used to pierce the side of Christ during the crucifixion. 

That fact has afforded it tremendous power, though Legends of Tomorrow was a little unclear what that power was.  Though the Spear of Longinus is a real world artifact of note, it also has a long and storied history in DC comics that hints at some major shake-ups and new additions to the Legends’ roster. 

Panel Vision - Master Men

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As I write this, it is the midst of December 2016- the dark times, as I presume future us will refer to the latter half of the 2010s.  In the middle of the long dark night of the nation’s soul comes a thoroughly ironic television event- season 2 of Amazon’s Man in the High Castle.  

The series is one of several prestige streaming shows produced in the wake of Netflix’ breakout success with original programming like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black.  High Castle, as it’s often shortened to, is an adaptation of a Philip K. Dick book of the same name from 1963 about an alternate history where the Axis won World War 2. 

These days “what if the Nazis won” is more colloquially known as “the 2016 election” so getting a whole TV show out of Nazi-ified Americana has decidedly lost its luster for the second season.  However, the event gives me a chance to dive into the comics backlog to once again talk about one of my favorite comics characters of all time: Uncle Sam.  Not only that, this is Uncle Sam’s latest adventure, going head-to-head with a Nazi version of the DCU in a tale aptly called…Master Men. 

Cover Story - Top 15 Evil Empire Covers

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This Friday marks the premiere of The Purge: Election Year, the third installment in the shockingly profitable political horror/dystopian thriller/Slasher action film series.  Yes, The Purge wears many hats but the one most key to this article is that of political horror, which this latest installment seems to be getting back to in a big way.  

There was still a socio-economic angle to the excellent Purge: Anarchy but Election Year looks to be taking the “American nightmare” set-up full force with a ton of creepy, Slasher infused American iconography punctuating pretty much all the marketing for it.  All that nightmarish Americana got me thinking about Evil Empire, a fantastic comic from BOOM Studios about the rise of anarchic fascism in the US.  

It was a great comic and my number 10 pick for the 10 best comics of 2015, it also featured a ton of spectacular covers that we’re going to showcase today.  So, with that said, let’s dive into the shallow end and get the cover story on the top 15 Evil Empire comic covers.

Cover Story - Top 10 Golden Age Captain America Covers

Hello and welcome to Cover Story, diving as little into the world of comics as possible.  This coming week represents the anniversary of Captain America’s creation, a landmark moment that’s being celebrated with a lavish special on ABC alongside the Agent Carter 2 hour premiere.  Given this is also the 240^th anniversary of America’s funding and the premiere of Captain America: Civil War, the third installment in what’s become the definitive superhero franchise of this era, it’s a good time to be Captain America that, I’ve decided to showcase some Cap covers this week.  However, much like Wonder Woman there are so many Captain America comics I could never cover them all in one go so these covers are just the Golden Age Captain America issues IE ones from the 1940s.  So, let’s jump into the shallow end and get the cover story on the top 10 Captain America covers of the Golden Age of comics. 

Panel Vision - History of Uncle Sam & The Freedom Fighters

Over this last weekend Amazon released an original blockbuster streaming series entitled Man in the High Castle, an adaptation of the Philip K. Dick story of the same name about an alternate history in which the Axis powers won World War 2.  I haven’t watched it yet but I’ve heard a lot of good things so far and I’m already a pretty big fan of alternate histories in general.  However, alternate histories are actually pretty rare outside of literature.  There are plenty of historical farces but as far as alternate futures crafted by changes in history that’s actually pretty rare and the ones there are usually come from comic books.  

Which leads us to today’s subject, the most enduring and popular alternate history in comic books, the world of Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters.  The heroes of an alternate timeline entitled Earth-10, Uncle Sam and his Freedom Fighters live in a world where President Roosevelt suffered a fatal heart attack at the height of World War 2 and the resulting instability cost the allies the war.  Now working in the underground Uncle Sam leads a small team of super heroes in a never-ending insurrection against the Axis Empire.