2020s – PopCult Reviews

Comic Book Review – Massiveverse Part One

Radiant Black Volume One (2021)
Reprints Radiant Black #1-6
Written by Kyle Higgins
Art by Marcelo Costa

Radiant Black Volume Two (2022)
Reprints Radiant Black #7-12
Written by Kyle Higgins
Art by Marcelo Costa

Comic Book Review – Iron Man by Christopher Cantwell Part Two

Iron Man: Books of Korvac III – Cosmic Iron Man (2022)
Reprints Iron Man (2020) #12-19
Written by Christopher Cantwell
Art by Angel Unzueta, Cafu, Ibraim Roberson, Julius Ohta, and Lan Medina

Iron Man: Source Control (2022)
Reprints Iron Man (2020) #20-25
Written by Christopher Cantwell
Art by Angel Uzueta

There’s a new type of superhero story on the scene now. Well, it’s “new” because it’s only been prevalent for about a decade. I think it started with writers like Tom King, who, if you regularly follow this blog, you’ll know I’m not a fan of. His great concepts hook me, but the execution is woefully insufficient. These are stories where the writer seems to impose themselves onto the protagonist somehow, and I can honestly say most comic writers aren’t as interesting as people. Alan Moore or Grant Morrison can get away with it because they are incredible writers, so any self-referential nods are brief and don’t interrupt the greater narrative. Christopher Cantwell falls in the “not that interesting” camp as he turns Iron Man into such a story during this run.

Comic Book Review – Iron Man by Christopher Cantwell

Iron Man: Books of Korvac I – Big Iron (2021)
Reprints Iron Man (2020) #1-5
Written by Christopher Cantwell
Art by Cafu

Iron Man: Books of Korvac II – Overclock (2021)
Reprints Iron Man (2020) #6-11
Written by Christopher Cantwell
Art by Cafu and Angel Unzueta

So, I’ve never been an Iron Man fan. I read issues here and there, and there are plenty of comics in which Iron Man appears. I’ve seen all the Iron Man movies. I just feel very meh about the character. If you had to compare him to a DC analog, I would say Batman is the closest. They are both rich white dudes who use their wealth to fund their superhero exploits. Batman is more interesting to me because of the darker aspects, and I think his Rogues Gallery is far more interesting than anyone who has ever fought Iron Man.

TV Review – Kevin Can F**k Himself

Kevin Can F**k Himself Season One (AMC)
Written by Valerie Armstrong, Dana Ledoux Miller, Kevin Etten, Craig DiGregorio, Noelle Valdivia, Mel Shimkovitz, Tom Scharpling, Sean Clements, Kate Loveless
Directed by Oz Rodriguez and Anna Dokoza

The television landscape has changed wildly in the last few years. When I was growing up, my television screen was filled with cheery families in sitcoms and silly high-concept procedural dramas, ala The A-Team and Knight Rider. Something shifted in the late 1990s with the arrival of The Sopranos, the idea that television could feature highly dysfunctional people in everyday settings doing terrible things. From there, this would grow into something like Breaking Bad, Weeds, Better Call Saul, and more. Yet sitcoms remained. Everybody Loves Raymond and King of Queens featured the trope of the schlubby idiot husband whose wife tolerates his mediocrity.

Comic Book Review – Something Is Killing the Children Volumes 1-3

Something is Killing the Children Volumes 1-3 (2020-2021)
Written by James Tynion IV
Art by Werther Dell’Edera

When it was first published, Something is Killing the Children was a five-issue limited series. However, the reader response was so overwhelmingly positive that instead of doing a series of mini-series, writer James Tynion IV was allowed to make it an ongoing by Image Comics. Like many series at Image Comics, especially since The Walking Dead became a show, this one feels like an extended pitch for the first season of a television program. It’s a rather contained setting with a limited number of recurring characters and lots of seeds for potential mysteries and subplots along the way. But is it any good?

TV Review – When was SNL Funny? Part 9 (of 9)

And so we come to the finale. This chunk of Saturday Night Live where they lost me. I’d watched at varying levels since I was a teenager, but by season 41, I just didn’t find it remarkably funny anymore. It certainly got worse when Trump became president, and the show pivoted into the most shallow critique of him, not on policy ever but instead on what a meanie he was or mocking his hair. Those sort of pointless jokes signals a lack of perspective, in my opinion, a writing staff that has been declawed or never had any, to begin with. All the while, the show made sure to hold up people like Jeff Bezos as heroic and pen jokes for Update criticizing citizen-led protests against Amazon warehouses. SNL affirmed its place as a comedy for the bourgeoisie.