You know, I realize the common opinion of the Ghost Rider movies, but I liked 'em. Both, in fact. Yes, they were ridiculous, but the character IS ridiculous. You're not going to be able to change that. At any rate, this is the first promising news about AOS since it debuted. The one thing it's always lacked is actual…

I suppose this means The Gouster won't be released as a stand-alone album in the future? Young Americans is one of my least favorite albums of his. I'd be curious to hear this—and may well, if it appears on streaming services—but I'm not sure I'll be interested enough to buy this whole set. I skipped the previous…

I still shout out his intro to Salt 'n Pepa on occasion. Somehow, it was as funny as any of the sketches.

Why indeed. Why……indeed.

This seems pretty obvious. As I noted when he died, just seeing the variety of artists who can legitimately claim Bowie as a significant influence is pretty astounding, from punk, art rock, new wave, glam metal, mainstream pop, and on and on.

Well, it's certainly closer than Weird Al's "This Song Is Just Six Words Long." That's just all around bad math on several levels.

Though I mostly hate his stuff, I have a soft spot for I'll Be There For You. Solid power ballad. Has anyone else stopped during the line "These five words I swear to you", and counted them? Turns out he's right:

If he did, you'd think he'd end up with butterflies or Japanese script or something. "I dunno….go nuts!", he'd tell the artist.

I get stuck on the way certain other games feel compared to Nintendo's. I loved Red Dead Redemption, but the controls were really kind of bad. There are even exceptions on their own consoles—I really didn't take to Xenoblade Chronicles.

I do think Nintendo games "feel" better than most any other game. I can never tell if that's just my own bias showing through, but it seems maybe there's more to it than just that.

I'm just ready for the non-stop marketing to come to an end.

Without judgement or complaint, I still think it's weird that everyone now considers Nick Fury to look like Sam Jackson. I mean, that must be the most prominent and successful "rebrand" of an old character ever.

Exactly this. It's really the best way to create new characters and market them. Creating buzz is an additional bonus. And if the character happens to "stick" as well as the new Ms. Marvel and Captain Marvel have, so much the better.

I thought it was "whies", like "why's". Or "wherefores".

Actually, that's a good point. If she wasn't going to come back to life, why was she named Phoenix? Hm. Otherwise, bringing her back was generally a bad idea, but some fascinating stories resulted from it.

Was that on Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men? Because Claremont's appearance there (episode 100) was amazing. That's probably where I realized what he was saying, and posted it above. Being under the corporate radar can be a great thing.

Well, I think there's a lot to unpack there. The characters you mentioned are all decades old, and their popularity was the product of a lot of different factors. Only Deadpool seems relatively "new", and even in that case, his popularity is the product of a later era than when he was introduced.

Ooh, New Universe! Those were the days.

Indeed. As a (amateur) keyboardist in a "band", I'm always interested to see what "real" keyboardists are actually playing with bands like this—not actual pianists, but the guys playing strings, synth noises, SFX, etc..

I will say, I have no issue with the new Iron Man. That said, as a fan of Claremont's run on X-Men, I'm continually reminded about how it seems like that run would be impossible these days, with Marvel continuously, forcefully, steering the ship. Back in my day, the most I had to worry about was the insistence on an…