superheroes
“Does it ever wake you in the middle of the night? The feeling that one day they will pass that foolish law or one just like it, and come for you? And your children?” —Magneto, X-Men (2000) X-Men is a big deal among superhero franchises. It went from a new
superheroes
“This isn't even a reluctant superhero story. I'm just getting screwed over. Is this what you guys want?” —She-Hulk, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law Social media has gotten weird, and not the good kind of weird. There are a lot of reasons for this, and one big
superheroes
Okay, let’s do this one last time, yeah? For real this time. This is it. My name is Miles Morales. I was bitten by a radioactive spider. And for like two days, I’ve been the one and only Spider-Man. I think you know the rest. —Miles Morales, Spider-Man:
superheroes
“You want to protect the world, but you don’t want it to change.” —Ultron, Avengers: Age of Ultron Thanks to the Comics Code, superhero media has a long history of sanitized stories. While American comics could be salacious enough that some clearly weren’t for children, their popularity among
superheroes
“This is the water, and this is the well. Drink full, and descend. The horse is the white of the eyes, and dark within.” —Woodsman, Twin Peaks: The Return Because of fan theories about Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me being in part a critique of Silence of the Lambs
superheroes
“It was the 80s. No one was too worried about the future.” —Janine, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire I’ve always been a fan of Ghostbusters, but it’s a franchise that’s struggled. The original movie takes place in a world where ghosts are real, something that the entire world shouldn’
superheroes
“I often wonder, how many alternate timelines do you destroy the world because, frankly, you don't have the cojones to die yourself. Hmm? So, as usual, I'll be the bigger man.” —The Joker, Zack Snyder’s Justice League One of the big contrasts between Japanese manga
Ursula K. Le Guin
“Heroes are powerful. Before you know it, the men and women in the wild-oat patch and their kids and the skills of the makers and the thoughts of the thoughtful and the songs of the singers are all part of it, have all been pressed into service in the tale
superheroes
There are several reasons why Japanese manga and American comics are so different. Cultural differences are a major factor of course, but these two forms of sequential art also developed independently and under different circumstances. Manga grew out of printing techniques that date back centuries and became both thoroughly mainstream
Gladiator
“If he could but have ended the war single-handed, it might have been different. But he was not great enough for that. He had been a thousand men, perhaps ten thousand, but he could not be millions. He could not wrap his arms around a continent and squeeze it into
superheroes
To accompany the Xeroverse Tetralogy, I'm also working on a nonfiction book tentatively titled The Trouble with Superheroes, which lays out the various issues I see with the genre and how it could be better. One of the linchpins of my critique is to take a close look