Static Thoughts - Top 15 American Horror Story Season Six Teasers

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Edited by Robert Beach

At the time of writing, the American Horror Story season 6 premiere is just two days away and. So far, the theme has remained thoroughly under wraps. Though there have been a handful of rumors, they’ve ranged from "The Mist" to "Orphans," so it’s still pretty much anybody’s guess what the latest season of the popular anthology horror series will be about. However, I’m not here to speculate, rather I'm praising the 24 teaser trailers FX released for this new season; each teaser has its own unique aesthetic and thematic creation. 

It was an amazing run of creativity to keep the fans guessing on what would come next for the show and has left us with a plethora of great 10-second horror films exploring the history and styles of the genre.  Now, because 24 is a huge number of videos to talk about, I’m widdling that down to the top 15 for this list. With that said, let’s dive in.

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 Pinky Protocol

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Edited by Robert Beach

As we enter the last few months of the 2016 American Presidential election, a strange trend has emerged out of the political discourse. While both this and the 2012 election have been colored by taking place after the explosion of Internet use from 2007-2010, this particular election has delved head first into web culture.  

From Hillary Clinton name-dropping Pokemon Go to Donald Trump sliding into the role of alt-right meme to Jill Stein tweeting about Harambe, this is very much the election the net built. The latest iteration of this idea, or rather a persistent example that’s picking up steam, is the Internet’s infatuation with conspiracy theories. 

Conspiracy theories have always circulated any given political election, but this is the first time we’ve heard major candidates like Trump talking about political conspiracies directed at them in an attempt to preemptively invalidate their opponent’s victory.  

That particular strategy, forming an elaborate conspiracy to cast oneself as the victim of persecution and frame your megalomania and totalitarian ambitions as courageous freedom fighting is hardly new. In fact, I first encountered it two decades ago in an episode of Pinky and the Brain. 

Cover Story - Top 10 NFL Super Pro Covers

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Sports and nerds, two simple concepts that have, for some reason, never really managed to come together.  By now I think we’ve all encountered the somewhat tired argument that nerds and sports have more in common than anyone would like to admit but it really bears repeating.  Sports are one of the only places in real life dominated by colorful costumes and iconography at all in line with the nerd palette and produces the same amount of fandom granularity and sense of defining identity.  

That was the crossover point Marvel comics was hoping to capitalize on in the ‘90s when they forced NFL Super Pro into the world.  NFL Super Pro was exactly what it says on the cover- a collaboration between Marvel Comics and the NFL to produce a football themed superhero, or rather I should say other football hero as their first attempt was called Kickers Inc., which I already covered.  Given that I’m a shameless hack willing to pander to Twitter hashtags, I’ve elected to honor NFL Super Pro with a look back at his top 10 comic covers. 

Panel Vision - Soviet Super Soldiers #1 Review

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Edited by Robert Beach

As globalization continues to be the dominant force of the 2010s, the first major foreign superhero film has finally gotten off the ground. This was relatively inevitable as foreign markets have always looked to America for inspiration. With superheroes, things were a little trickier. The Superhero is a quintessentially American art form. While there are superheroes from other nations, they’re rarely as common or as widespread. 

This first entry into the genre from a major outsider comes from Russia in the film The Guardians. It looks pretty fun; at the same time, it’s eerily reminiscent of another Russian superhero group. I’m not sure if this is a case of The Guardians borrowing from what already exists, or Marvel just being really good at encapsulating the Russian heroic aesthetic. Either way, it’s given me excuse to showcase on of my favorite culture artifacts: Soviet Super Soldiers #1.   

Cover Story - Top 10 Deathstroke Covers

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Let’s talk about Deathstroke.  This will be my third article dedicated to Da’ Stroke, as I’ve elected to lovingly call him, and I like to think of it as trying to make peace with the Terminator.  I may dislike him for the role he played in Identity Crisis and the undo importance thrust upon him in most adaptations, but regardless of my feelings, it’s clear Slade Wilson isn’t going away anytime soon.  

As such it’ll probably be better to try and find common ground now than keep resisting him, especially because his current ongoing series is shaking out pretty well and I really like Joe Manganiello.  As such these are the top 10 Deathstroke comic covers I’ve culled from across the shockingly high number of solo series he’s had.  Seriously, for a villain, this guy has had like 4 solo series at least, but I guess that just speaks to his appeal.  Let’s see if I can find what everybody else sees in these books. 

Panel Vision - Prez (2015) Review

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Edited by Robert Beach

This has been a strange year for politics. Mainly this election feels like the capstone on the long trend of social media growing to define the political arena rather than just reflect it. At the time of writing, the most recent bit of bizarre web memetics dominating the conversation about the national election came when the head of Latinos for Donald Trump threatened that “if Hillary wins, you’ll see Taco Trucks on every corner.” 

Naturally, this bit of bizarre posturing has drawn uproarious laughter from most corners, probably because “a taco truck on every corner” sounds like a god damn utopia. Even though the injection of tacos into the forefront of the presidential election seems ludicrous, it made me realize there had been on brilliant voice who saw this all coming, one spot-on genius comic: 2015’s Prez. 

Panel Vision - History of Deathstroke: A Plea Against Modern Deathstroke

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Edited by Robert Beach 

It’s starting to look like the DC villain Deathstroke will appear in next year’s Justice League and will more than likely be the villain of Ben Affleck’s solo Batman film.  I’ve been hesitant to address this news because, frankly, I’ve been holding out the hope that it was all some elaborate misdirection meant to obfuscate the real villain being Clock King, Dr. Destiny, or someone else, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. If that bit of misplaced optimism wasn’t an obvious enough giveaway, I’m not terribly excited over this Deathstroke news. I get the sense I’m an outsider in this particular arena. 

Most Bat fans are salivating at the notion of Deathstroke making his second live-action debut while a good number of more moderate comic fans are happy to see their favorite Teen Titans villain make it to the big time. Even some older fans out there are happy to see Deathstroke’s return to culture prominence. To understand this along with the character’s future, we need to look at his past, so let’s dive into the history of Deathstroke to see why I’m the only one not thrilled about his adaptation. 

CW Announces Black Lightning Show

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Edited by Robert Beach 
You have to wonder how many superheroes there are to adapt. I mean, I love the genre, and I flatter myself by saying I have a vast and encyclopedic knowledge of both Marvel and DC heroes. At some point, there just aren’t going to be the characters to keep these movie and TV universes going. More than that, the more times the folks behind these adaptations try and repeat their success, the less likely they are to manage it. I mean, WB has been trying to recapture the success of Dark Knight for 8 years, and they haven’t managed it once. Now, over at CW (aka the only good DC production outlet currently working), they’ve recently announced they're launching their 5^th superhero show, starring DC’s first solo black hero Black Lightning. 

5 DC Films That Might Join Justice League 2 in 2019

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Edited by Robert Beach

On Tuesday, I talked about movies DC had already announced we might see in their open slot in October 2018. Today, I set my sights even further forward to the fall of 2019 where DC has another unclaimed movie slot for November 1^st.  Given how far out that movie is, it’s a lot less likely to be tied up with the various pre-announced films or tied to the recent crop of DC movies. 

Even though WB isn’t working to Marvel’s “phase” scheduling system, they are subconsciously structuring their films in groups of set-up with every movie from now to the end of 2018 spinning out of Man of Steel. 2019 looks to be the start of something new for WB with movies like Shazam and Green Lantern Corp on the horizon. As such, whatever film we’re getting in 2019 will probably be a new feature, something removed from the current crop of DC features.