The Mix : What are people talking about today?

Mindy Newell: For The Love Of Spock And Stingrays

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“…More importantly, the personal touch provokes some bracing moments that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. It’s one thing to have Neil DeGrasse Tyson or various NASA technicians talk about how they were inspired by Spock – or even to have Trek-loving actors like Jim Parsons and Jason Alexander say that they sympathize with stories of Nimoy staying mostly in character when his show wasn’t shooting. But only Adam Nimoy could comment knowledgeably about what it was like to have a drunken argument with Leonard Nimoy and then walk out into a world where images of Mr. Spock were impossible to avoid. The best scenes in For The Love Of Spock are the most conventional, featuring famous folk praising a pop culture legend. But the scenes that most linger in the mind are more like the one where the director confesses his complicated feelings about his father to another Spock, Zachary Quinto. It’s moving to know that even Nimoy’s son is as in thrall to an icon as the rest of us.” – Noel Murray, AV Club.com

“Leonard Nimoy was an artist who defined a timeless character.” – Andy Webster, New York Times

“The 1963 Corvette received a major restyling, new mechanics and a new name: ‘Stingray.’ Zora Arkus-Duntov convinced the brass at GM to include independent rear suspension on the ’63 because he convinced them he could sell 30,000 cars if they had it. The passenger compartment was still kept far to the rear of the car to allow the engine/transmission to sit behind the centerline of the front wheels. This allowed for a better weight ratio (47/53) that improved handling. The ’63 Corvette included new twin headlights that are hidden behind an electrically operated cover. This added to the aerodynamics of the car when the headlights were not in use. The fastback coupe was also new; it included a fixed roof with a large back window that was split down the center with a body-colored bar. (This bar was very controversial and was removed in 1964, making the ’63 very unique.) The car now had recessed non-functional hood lovers. Front fender louvers and ribbed rocker panels replaced the coves on the earlier models. The coupe also has lovers at the back of the side windows. The dash has circular gauges with black faces and the earlier models have storage space under the seats. Air conditioning, power brakes, and power-assisted steering were now available options.• Total 1963 Corvette Stingrays Built: 21,513 • Convertibles: 10, 919 • Coupes: 10, 594” – www.vettefacts.com

So, whass up, people? Sorry I wasn’t here last week, but a big thanks to Editor Mike (Gold) for the very funny piece he posted in my absence. Only laugh I had about Thanksgiving this year – nope, Turkey Day was not fun.

And what did I do the rest of the weekend, besides recover from my intestinal woes? Which really didn’t end until Monday morning, when I woke up “bright-eyed and busy-tailed” and really bummed out over what could have been a great four-day holiday from work?

Well, for one thing, I watched For the Love of Spock on Amazon Prime. A documentary originally intended to celebrate the much beloved Vulcan as part of Star Trek’s 50th anniversary celebration, Adam Nimoy – son of Leonard, originator of the idea, and director of many acclaimed television shows including Star Trek: The Next Generation, Ally McBeal, Gilmore Girls, and NYPD Blue – expanded the project into a love sonnet to his father and his long, successful careers as an actor, and later, a photographer. In order to do both the film and his father justice, Adam sought crowdfunding in June 2015 in order to raise enough money to meet the licensing fees needed to use clips, stills, and archival footage from Paramount Pictures and CBS. The month-long campaign on Kickstarter grabbed attention, and by the end of the month (June 2015), Adam had raised $662,640 from 9,439 lovers of Spock and Leonard from around the world.

Was it worth it? Are you kidding? Im-not-so-ho, it’s worth every cent. It’s just a totally wonderful movie, with interviews from William Shatner, Nichelle Nichols, Simon Pegg, J.J. Abrams, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, and many others, including Leonard’s brother, sister-in-law, his daughter and grandchildren. Adam himself pulls no punches, talking about the raucous and rough relationship he had with his father until, in adulthood, the two men found their way back to family and love. (Adam directed his father in the remake of the classic episode, I, Robot on the revived Outer Limits, which ran from 1995 to 2002 on Showtime, SyFy – God, how I hate that spelling! – and in syndication.)

car-e1480901639643-4849297Seriously, people, devote a little more than an hour and watch this!

Hmm, what else?

corvette-mustang-5028413I read Mike Gold’s column about Patton Oswalt with interest, being a fan of The Goldbergs (Wednesday, ABC) and knowing that Mr. Oswalt narrates the show, playing the writer and creator Adam Goldberg as he tells the story of his family. I then clicked on the link within Mike’s column to take me to Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee and Jerry’s cup of joe with Patton – and you’re right, Mike, Mr. Oswalt’s Death of Superman is an absolutely fabulous idea!!! So much better than Doomsday – though after rewatching that monstrosity on HBO last week, part of my face-in-the-toilet Thanksgiving weekend (as if I wasn’t suffering enough) I do have to say that the best part of the movie, the only part that got me hooked and made me forget my woes were those last minutes as Wonder Woman fought the creature. Oh, right, Superman and Batman were there, too.

Anyway, then I started browsing CICGC, ‘cause I haven’t been on the site for a while, and watched Jerry have coffee with Barak Obama at the White House. Jerry calls him “the coolest President ever!,” and you know what? Just to see Barak behind the wheel of Jerry’s 1963 Corvette Stingray – the coolest car ever!!! – well, “I’m hip, bro.”

Can you even imagine President – God, how I shiver as I type this – Donald J. Trump behind the wheel of the coolest car ever!!!

Yeah, I can’t either.

 

Ed Catto: So Bad It’s Good

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It wasn’t that long ago that comics enthusiasts would cringe at all the silliness. It used to be so hard for comic fans to be taken seriously by the world at large. I vividly remember being so enthusiastic about those moody “serious” 70s Batman stories like Night of the Stalker (Detective Comics #439) or There Is No Hope in Crime Alley (Detective Comics #457). But I knew if I ever were to discuss these comics with any non-comics fan, I’d simply get an eye roll and sarcasm along with a “Holy Comics” pun or a “POW, ZAP, WHAM” pantomime. There was no respect for comics.

detective-comics-457-%e2%80%a2In fact, this led to the adoption of the term “graphic novel” in 1978. Will Eisner coined the phrase to inoculate creative endeavors in sequential art (comics) against the public’s dismissive mindset for all comics.

Today, the world understands that not all comics are silly and all comics are not about superheroes. So much so, that there is a conversation bubbling up in many places that argues that maybe we don’t even need that highfalutin term – Graphic Novel – anymore.

Geeks have won. The world now knows that comics can be many things and can be enjoyed by many different people in many different ways.

Which now brings us full circle. I also believe there’s no need to cringe at the silliness of comics anymore. Comics occupy such a big wide world that all of it can be celebrated – from the silly and whimsical to the grim and gritty.

And maybe that’s why there’s been a mini-trend of books that simply have fun pointing out all the silly comic super hero characters. So consider this a sequel of sorts to my Yuletide Book Guide column last week. This week, let’s get ready to rumble giggle with a few wonderful books.

The League of Regrettable Superheroes: Half-Baked Heroes from Comic Book History by Jon Morris is an excellent introduction to 100 of the goofiest heroes ever. Morris spotlights each with background, vintage artwork and colorful commentary. It’s divided into three sections: The Golden Age, The Silver Age and the Modern Age. Some readers might take offense at the heroes he’s selected to ridicule (Hey, I remember when we took Marvel’s Human Fly seriously) but it’s a great primer!

I’ve know a lot about many of the characters featured, but super-obscure characters like The Bouncer, Dr. Vampire and Captain Truth were new to me –and I’m so glad I know about them now.

superweirdheroes-%e2%80%a2In fact, this book is so much fun, that I’m glad that Morris just came out with a sequel: The League of Regrettable Supervillains: Oddball Villains from Comic Book History.

Craig Yoe is man filled with passion and wit – and both always come out in everything he does. I enjoy all his comics and books, but Yoe Books, in association with IDW, just published Super Weird Heroes. This amazing book also spotlights these goofball heroes of yesteryear, but here you can also read their adventures. This book is 500 pages total, but offers 320 pages of glorious goofy reprints.

Michael Eury is likewise an author filled with passion for his subjects. I really enjoy his Back Issue magazine, obviously a labor of love. His upcoming Hero-A-Go-Go: Campy Comic Books, Crimefighters, & Culture of the Swinging Sixties zeros in on the goofiness for a specific time period.

“Whereas Back Issue magazine allows me to explore the comics and culture of my adolescence, Hero-A-Go-Go is my love letter to my childhood, the Swinging Sixties,” said Eury.

This book is not on sale until April of 2017 so you’ll have to be patient. But there’s so many good things that I can’t wait to read – everything from Dell’s Monster Superheroes and Joe Simon’s Jigsaw to the story behind All Star Dairy’s Batman Milk! And there’s a great preview available right here.

hero-a-go-go-%e2%80%a2“It was a thrill interviewing folks like Bill Mumy, Ralph Bakshi, and Dean Torrence (Jan and Dean Meets Batman) about their contributions to Camp culture, but I was most charmed by Bob Holiday, who brought the Man of Steel to life on Broadway in It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane… It’s Superman,” said Eury. “He took the role of Superman seriously, and I’m honored to shine a much-deserved spotlight on his valuable, but too often overlooked, contributions to the Superman saga.”

So don’t take yourself too seriously and spread a little fun this Yuletide season –and beyond – with these treasures. Here’s your handy ComicMix summary:

Both League Regrettable Superheroes  and Supervillains books are published by Quirk Books and the hardcover versions retail for $24.95.

Craig Yoe’s Super Weird Heroes is published by IDW and the hardcover retails for $39.99.

Michael Eury’s Hero-A-Go-Go: Campy Comic Books, Crimefighters, & Culture of the Swinging Sixties is available for pre-order now and will be published on 4/19/17 for $36.95.

John Ostrander: Heroes For Hire Redux

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Boy, do I have Christmas gift ideas for you! Volume 5 of the Suicide Squad reprints, Apokolips Now, goes on sale December 27 (okay, it just misses Christmas). The extended blu-ray for the movie goes on sale December 13. And Marvel is releasing the first of two volumes gathering my Heroes For Hire work on December 20. You’re right, we want all your monies.

Today I want to talk about H4H. It was a team book whose members included Iron Fist, Luke Cage, White Tiger, Black Knight, Ant-Man, Jim Hammond (a.k.a. the Original Human Torch) plus assorted guest stars rotating in and out such as Hulk, She-Hulk, Hercules and, eventually, Deadpool – who shows up in Volume 2 out in late January.

heroes-for-hire-6006522It’s not hard to understand why Marvel is re-issuing the stories in a TPB. Luke Cage is on Netflix and Iron Fist soon will be, they’ll both then appear in The Defenders, and there’s some serious buzz about a Heroes For Hire series as well. There’s a little luster on my name as well right now because of the hoopla about Suicide Squad.

The series was originally set in the Onslaught Era where some of Marvel’s heroes, specifically The Avengers and the Fantastic Four, were thought to have died in battle with a being called Onslaught. In reality, they wound up in a pocket universe from which they would eventually return. Their absence left a power vacuum in the Marvel Universe where other teams, such as Heroes For Hire, were formed to fill the void.

The book was originally going to be written by Roger Stern, a fine writer and Marvel mainstay, but after putting the team together and plotting the first issue, Roger felt that his workload was overcommitted; something had to give and, at that point, H4H was easiest to jettison. However, Roger recommended me to his editor, Mark Bernardo, as his replacement. Mark and I had worked together on other Marvel projects such as Blaze of Glory and an incarnation of The Punisher so Mark was more than willing for me to take over H4H.

I had previously done Suicide Squad over at DC so I was interested in seeing what I could do with a team book at Marvel. I had long been a Marvel fan; at one point, I was an even greater Marvel fan than a DC one and was reading almost everything Marvel put out in those days.

I’m really glad to see H4H reprinted; it became a very different series for me. I plotted it more loosely in a very freewheeling style. Sometimes a story wouldn’t end in one issue but overlap into the next and then plunge right into the next plot.

One of the stranger conceits that I developed was the narrator, the person who speaks in the caption boxes. He got very strange. As early as the third issue, he was addressing the reader directly. It started as him being a Stan Lee type, calling the readers “effendi” and promising to get them caught up as he went.  I especially remembered Stan doing that in Spider-Man and it always stuck with me.

This narrator got out of control, however, throwing in pop quizzes and sometimes panicking at what was happening to the characters. He eventually was “fired” by She-Hulk. How’s that for odd?

I always like playing with continuity when I can and there was one element in Luke Cage that I had fun with. Cage is very street tough but, when he swore, he’d say, “Sweet Christmas!” Understandable at the time given language restrictions in comics when Cage was created as a Marvel blackploitation character.

Lot of people thought “Sweet Christmas!” was ridiculous but I gave Cage a reason for using it. When he’s mocked by an opponent during a fight about it, Cage informs him that his grandma objected to swearing and that “my grandma is tougher than you!”

There are some quiet moments as well that I loved. Namor comes over to the building housing H4H and visits Jim Hammond. In their younger days they had been occasional foes and then allies during WW2,along with Captain America in The Invaders. The scene is just the two of them talking as old friends and Hammond gets out a joke that makes Namor laugh hard. “Firebug,” he tells him, “you kill me.” It’s just one page but I really love it.

My penciller on the series was Pascual Ferry, a Spanish artist, and his stuff was and is amazing. The storytelling is wonderful, there’s a Jack Kirby like sense of energy in his work, he has lots of enthusiasm and energy as well as talent and skill and I simply loved working with him. He’s very professional and a great guy to boot.

The tone of what I did in H4H is very different, I think, than anything else I’ve done. There’s just a lot of fun in it; I was consciously trying for a very Marvel feel and I think this, along with my Marvel westerns, are some of the best work I’ve done for the House of Ideas.

As I said, the second and concluding volume of H4H will be published at the end of January and I’ll come back and talk some more about that when we get there. I got to work with one of my favorite artistic partners before the series ended. In the meantime, if you’re a fan of my work I can recommend this to you. Not everyone has seen it and I think it’s worth seeing.

As Stan the Man used to say, Face front, true believers. Because that’s where the future is coming from.

Excelsior.

Tweeks: Supernatural Interviews Part 2

Here’s part 2 of Maddy’s interview with the cast of Supernatural. She talks to Misha Collins, Jared Padalecki and new showrunners Robert Singer and Andrew Dabb about Season 12.

Anya also reports on what Misha told her about her favorite show, Cooking Fast & Fresh with West.

 

 

editor’s note: this episode of Tweeks should have gone live on Thanksgiving, but the editor was in a food coma so please enjoy this bonus episode a little late!

Marc Alan Fishman: A Guide To Geek Gifting

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Well, it’s about that time again when the goyem are all a’flutter over black Fridays and Christmas lists and all that jazz. I admit, in my family, the holidays were never extravagant excuses for excess. My birthday is December 28th and I was a little mercenary (as my mother would tell you), so more often than not I was never the type who had to have the thing. I was more or less a “give me cash so I can go get myself something nice” kinda tot. Just roll Chanukah and my birthday into one and drop me off at Best Buy.

But then, like all nerdy children, I got older. And while I retained my love of monetary tribute, amongst my own brood of kin (a.k.a. Unshaven Comics), there was a desired propensity to give actual gifts that were sincerely well thought out and received with aplomb. Kyle one year got me a brick of rewritable CDs. I have yet to forgive him. But I digress.

When we have those people in our lives who are of a certain persuasion – some label it as nerdy, others say geeky, and the refined say collectors – being able to produce a gift that shows we love them and that they will actually like can seem impossible. Well, my friends, here’s one collector’s key tips to getting your nebbish nerd a knickknack they’ll cherish for a good long while.

Find out where they shop and play detective

Most comic book fans will have a local comic emporium from which they procure their pulp on a regular basis. Why not visit said shoppe and inquire as to their taste. If your local proprietor is anything like mine, they can shuffle through the subscription box of your giftee and steer you in the right direction. More often than not we covet random statues, action figures, and Absolute editions of books that are just beyond the pale of normal purchasing. Any of them are entirely perfect choices, as directed by someone in the know. You look like a hero, and they get something to display and or read!

It’s OK to go Gift Card if you think Experience not Product

Look, I said it above: I am a fan of monetary gifts. But as a nerd? I actually love the challenge of a gift that forces me out of my comfort zone. If you give me a gift card to a store I wouldn’t normally frequent, well, now I have an opportunity to shop someplace new. For the nerd at heart this is actually a great thing. An even better expericnce: when the gift card is an experience not just a collectible. A gift card to a nice restaurant, the movies, the local arcade, paintball range, etc., is the perfect excuse to lure your resident nerd out of their man or woman cave out into the real world. And if they scoff, tell them it’s a LARP quest and pat yourself on the back.

Subscriptions are the gift that keep on giving

There’s little to no doubt that a well-connected nerd is likely to have a subscription or two. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Spotify, Xbox Live, Playstation Network, ComicBlitz, or any odd MMORPG out there… all tether their user base to a monthly fee to enjoy their wares. I’ll bet dollars to donuts that your special little guy or gal isn’t subscribed to all of the ones I mentioned. Pick up the tab on any one they don’t have, for even three to six months And you’ll be opening a world of content to them that they’re otherwise not enjoying. And in case it wasn’t clear before? For geeks, nerds, dweebs, collectors, and nerf-herders alike… content is king.

When all else fails… Ask them!

I would rather admit to someone who is hard to shop for that I want to please them than simply give a bad gift. More often than not, the nerds in our lives (myself very much included) are always ready to blather on and on about the random assortment of hobbies we’re tending to at a given time. To have a loved one, or cherished friend reach out and want to be involved in the minutiae of our modest loves is oftentimes all we’re really seeking in the first place – something to celebrate (ahem, geek out over) with those who can appreciate it too. The day my wife sits down with me to ask what’s going on with the WWE is the day we… uhh… well… none of your business.

And on that note? Good luck in your shopping escapades. Of course, you could always check out ComicMix’s (or Unshaven Comics) fine offerings of books and related bric-a-brac for your favorite comic connoisseur.  Not to be shameless here folks… just fearlessly capitalistic!

Happy shopping!

Martha Thomases: alt-truth

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The end of the year is a time to contemplate our lives, to count our blessings and enjoy the company of family and friends. It is a time to celebrate peace and goodwill.

It’s also a hell of a time to raise a ruckus.

Most of us here at ComicMix are passionate in our adoration of free speech and the First Amendment. At the same time, we revel in diversity and equal opportunity and think minority groups are worthy of respect.

Some people think these two impulses are mutually exclusive. These people are wrong. And it is more important than ever to say this.

Let’s take a rather frivolous example. There is currently some controversy about the use of the term “alt-right” to describe an assortment of racist and misogynist American nationalist groups. Some people find the label confusing, since it sounds remarkably like “alt-country,” a musical genre that emerged in the 1990s. Some people find it a whitewash (you should pardon the expression) of opinions that had previously been labeled “Neo-Nazi” or “white supremacist.”

In general, I believe it is polite to call people what they wish to be called. Just as one example, over the decades, I’ve called people of color “colored,” “Negro,” “Afro-American,” “black” and “African American,” depending on which term I thought was preferred at the time.

However, in this case, I think “alt-right” is deliberately misleading. Just as I can’t call people who favor the death penalty “pro-life” no matter what their views on reproductive rights, I can’t describe Steve Bannon with a term that shares its syllables with a kind of music made by Steve Earle. I also think “alt-right” is insulting to principled conservatives (and, yes, those people exist).

Clarity, in this case, is more important than good manners, especially when those who are using the term are journalists. In a perfect world, the media would only publish facts, along with opinions that are based on those facts. Since we live in an imperfect world, we use this ideal as something to which we aspire.

Which brings me to a more important and more complicated issue. In Germany, where there is no United States Constitution as law of the land, and therefore no First Amendment, they have laws that prohibit hate speech. We can have a discussion about whether or not this is a good thing, and I can take either side of that discussion, depending on what day it is.

In the link above you can read how Germany’s laws are difficult to enforce in this digital age. Neo-Nazis frequently use social media (in this case, Facebook) to spread their bigotry. In some cases they publish names, addresses and phone numbers of those people they consider too foreign for their tastes. Those people, in turn, get harassed and threatened.

The German government wants to hold Facebook liable for the content of this speech. Facebook doesn’t want to do that.

Personally, I don’t want Facebook to determine what is and isn’t hateful. We probably won’t agree. I also don’t want Facebook to act as some kind of police force, enforcing German laws in Germany. Just as we don’t prosecute cable companies if someone streams child pornography on a computer, Facebook, in this instance, is more the conduit than the content.

At the same time, Facebook is a private company and not a public utility. As a private company, it is entitled to enforce whatever code of conduct it chooses, as long as that code doesn’t break the law. It can also draft these rules according to the kind of business deals it wishes to make. People who want a social network that allows them to spew hate speech are welcome to find one, or create one.

My pal Mike Gold (who occupies this space each Wednesday) likes to say that he prefers it when people say racist, sexist, hateful things, because then he knows with whom he’s dealing. I get that. I also know that those on the receiving end of such bigotry can suffer from the cumulative effects of such speech, a death of a thousand cuts that ultimately inhibits their own ability to speak freely.

If you, like me, often use the end of the year as an opportunity to donate to worthwhile organizations as a way to celebrate, please consider the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund for its commitment to free speech for everyone, and to Feminist Frequency for its commitment to encouraging diverse voices.

Because this holiday season, the truth is the gift that will be most needed in 2017.

Tweeks: November Loot Crate & Loot Pets Unboxing

This week Maddy & Barkley (Anya’s new replacement) unbox the latest Loot Crate & Loot Pets.  November’s theme is Magical & they encounter some great stuff from Steven Universe, Lord of the Rings, Doctor Strange, Fantastic Beasts, Game of Thrones & more.

Dennis O’Neil: Crossing Over

  • News
  • December 1, 2016

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There you are, somewhen on the far side of one of these bedeviling time gaps, at least four days in the future from when I’m typing this and – I don’t really know – you just might be squirming with anticipation because in a few hours or less – your hours – you’ll be watching the final part of the season’s megaevent, the four-part television crossover featuring Supergirl, The Flash, Green Arrow and the members of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.

Is your breath taken?

Me, I’m sitting here in Monday afternoon, not knowing what the crossover is even about. (Of course, it’ll be in some way about the heroes mentioned in the previous 81 word! paragraph.)

So, again, tv is following behind comic books. Not a knock on the video guys: comics got there first because high speed printing was invented before video transmission – the first steam driven press debuted way back in 1825 and there’s your trivia of the day – and although television technology and print technology are vastly different, they are both what Stephen King calls story delivery systems and in that capacity deal with some of the same problems.

Among those problems: making lots of money from fictional characters. One answer occurred to mass audience storytellers when very few people had ever seen a television set and comics were in their infancy: have characters from one popular publication appear in another publication. A publisher could hope that the crossover stunt would expose readers of one magazine to the other magazine and the newbies would become regulars. So went the hope.

The ancestors of today’s two biggest comics companies were the first publishers to do the big crossover thing. (I’ll call that a coincidence if you will.) What became DC comics gave us All-Star Comics, which featured the company’s most popular heroes, and some maybe not so popular, joining together to solve various humdingers of crises and what became Marvel Comics put their Submariner in the same adventure with their Human Torch. All this in 1940, just before World War Two.

And so crossovers joined comics publishing’s tool kit and they’ve been appearing ever since.

In 1927 – yeah, that early – television was presented to the world but it took another 20 years, give or take, for the tube to start being a household fixture. Television, like comics before it, had to deliver exciting entertainment every week using the same set of characters while being careful not to kill them. Like comics. I’d like to say that it was inevitable that screen drama would start crossing over, especially since a lot of the material began as comics stories. But what do I know from inevitable? It happened and thus it’s reality and reality always trumps everything else.

Ooops!

Did I just use a naughty word?

 

Molly Jackson: Sci-Fi Screaming

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This past week, I went back to my parents for Thanksgiving. One of the big benefits of that is the ability to watch TV. Yes, I said that. I went back to watch TV. I don’t have cable, and I’m lazy about downloading things illegally. So I spend a good chunk of holidays binge watching my parents OnDemand cable package. My parents seem to be fine with this. Seriously.

While I was there, I caught the first episode of SyFy Channel’s latest show, the futuristic Incorporated.

Incorporated follows Ben Larson, a young executive with a secret. He isn’t who he says he is. He is actually from the red zone, an outside district of the Spiga Corporation. He has secretly built a life in Spiga’s green (a.k.a. safe) zone, where he leads the perfect life and hunts for the girl he loves. What this show does a great job of laying out in the first episode is the future they envisioned. It is a world controlled by corporations, not governments.  A future world where everyone either works for the corporate machine or lives in extreme conditions. A world where getting fired literally equals torture and death.

This show may sound eerily familiar, especially if you are an avid SyFy or Sci-Fi watcher. It is because it really is just the latest in a long and growing list of shows warning about corporate control. On SyFy alone, this is the third (at least, I might have missed one) currently in production. By the by, Dark Matter and Killjoys are both awesome shows and you should check them out. But these shows aren’t the first of the controlling companies in Sci-Fi. Weyland-Yutani, OCP, Tyrell, Soylent, GeneCo; the list can go on and on.

Entertainment, especially Sci-Fi, works to envision all possibilities for humanity as well as look at who we are as a people. Every story is informed by the current events of the world. So what does it say that we have a trend of corporate greed/government in our visions for the future? When you look at the Incorporated website, they include a “historical timeline” of how the world got to the corporate control in 2074 that the show revolves around. It was so realistic, so possible. It was terrifying.

Science Fiction has been warning about corporate corruption and unlimited control for decades. This isn’t a huge leap for anyone who has been watching or reading the news. The warnings are more and more frequent and obvious. The real question is, are we listening and learning?

In case you want to catch the first episode of Incorporated to see what’s to come, it officially premieres tonight at 10pm EST on SyFy.

 

Mike Gold: Patton Oswalt Really Is Everywhere!

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Patton Oswalt is ubiquitous.

The comedian / actor / writer / producer has a list of credits longer than Reed Richards’ arm, and if I mention just some of the shows he’s been in (or voiced) that I enjoyed, you’ll understand why I think he’s tapped into my cable feed. But, in the interest of full disclosure, this personal list includes Justified, Agents of SHIELD, Community, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Futurama, Burn Notice, Veep, Archer, and Static Shock. He’s co-starring in the newly revived Mystery Science Theater 3000 playing the latest newest member of the Forrester family. And he steals the spotlight in Foil, one of Weird Al Yankovic’s best videos.

patton-oswalt-foil-1596806If somebody semi-knowledgeable told me Oswalt is one of the guys in the Daleks cans, I’d probably believe ‘em.

He’s made no secret of his being a comic book fan – he pitched a “death of Superman” story to Jerry Seinfeld (himself a Superman fan) on Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee that I would love to see in print. I should note that he built part of his stand-up act around his enthusiasm before Geek Culture became fashionable. And, for personal reasons I won’t go into here, I can testify that Patton Oswalt’s heart is where his act is.

But this time, he’s outdone himself. When Justice League Action premieres in a few weeks, he’ll be joining such stalwarts as Sean Astin, Kevin Conroy, John DiMaggio, Michael Dorn, Mark Hamill, Ken Jeong, Carl Reiner (yow!), Armin Shimerman, Brent Spiner, Tara Strong, and James Woods behind the microphone. Fine; a good gig is a wonderful thing to behold.

However, Oswalt is voicing one of the most obscure characters in the DC multiverse. He’s voicing Space Cabbie.

space-cabby-8723390If you were to respond with “who?” well, I couldn’t blame you. Shortly after that meteor snuffed the dinosaurs, DC Comics was publishing a lot of continuing characters in their science fiction comics. Adam Strange is – deservedly – the best known; Space Ranger, the Atomic Knights, Ultra The Multi-Alien are among the many others. And Space Cabbie – or Space Cabby, depending on who was paying attention at the time – is among the more obscure.

His adventures ran in Mystery In Space between 1954 and 1958 and, comic book continuity being akin to those arcade claw machines, has been revived for guest-shots several times in recent decades. But not so many as to release him from obscurity.

I doubt that when Patton was asked which character he’d like to voice, he spurted out “Space Cabbie!” Actually I doubt he was asked at all – but, being a fellow fanboy and knowing his work and his dedication to our medium… well, I wouldn’t be surprised if Space Cabbie were Patton Oswalt’s choice.

Justice League Action starts its weekly run on Cartoon Network December 16th. Check your local listings to see if you have local listings. And Patton Oswalt, thankfully, is everywhere.

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