The Amazing Spider-Man 3: The Commuter Cometh!

Well, it's not all Marvel's fault.  The big problem is that Marvel, before they launched their own studio and then were acquired by Disney, did what DC used to do (before they were acquired by Time Warner in the 80s) - they licensed the characters to other studios/production companies interested in making movies.  All…

@avclub-b4238f7793ec8c1a632f14f2a1766c68:disqus I would have read me the hell out of a fantasy series by Nabokov.  The biggest problem with sci-fi/fantasy novels is that the authors often have great ideas, but can't write for shit.  Very few of them have as their primary, secondary, or even tertiary goal writing…

@persia2:disqus Exactly.  Unlike the Tolkien example (where you have no idea where JRR ends and Christopher begins), you have the note cards right there in front of you.  And, if you really want, you can punch them out of the book and reorganize them and just flip through them like Vladimir Vladimirovich would have…

I wouldn't go that far, @avclub-e57f718840a576abbb40a7d046c4e3b0:disqus—there was a lot of demand for access to it among Nabokov scholars, for whom it is a really interesting example of how he wrote.  I would much rather have seen a scholarly edition to what we got, but the photostatic copies of the handwritten note…

I'd say you're mostly right—there were some occasional resurrections (such as Wonder Man, as @avclub-9024f9f0a80d2d248c7c6efb2e715c37:disqus mentions), but until the 80s, characters usually stayed dead.  And the longer they were dead, the more likely they were going to remain so.

@hornacek:disqus Yeah, pretty much she was brought back solely so they didn't have to bring back Baby May.  Great thinking, Marvel.  So many more story possibilities with that octogenarian than with the spectacular spider-girl.  *facepalm*

And now we have the much more interesting Carol Danvers as Captain Marvel.  I'm seriously shocked it's taken Marvel 30+ years to realize she's an obvious person to fill the necessary-for-trademark-purposes boots.

Hmm, still sounds better than when Marvel decided to kill all of Alpha Flight for shits and giggles right after House of M.  Because, you know, no one cares about Alpha Flight.  *sigh*

Dammit, and I was just about to read the "The Death of Gwen Stacy" trade!  Thanks for ruining it!

@sdelmonte:disqus & @avclub-6e6ba8f8387793dc7660178e8b68beb8:disqus - the thing I find strange is how much some of those early stories that are widely considered awesome deal with death and loss.  Pretty much his whole "colors" series for Marvel (Daredevil: Yellow, Spider-Man: Blue, Hulk: Grey, etc.) are about a hero…

See, e.g., the return of Bucky.  Not that it turned out bad, just that someone can be dead for sixty years and a random writer can come along and say, "Hey, you remember that guy everyone hated?  Let's bring him back!"  And sometimes it even works.

@avclub-72685cbb553a7ebfbccb08092d11c7e0:disqus No worries.  But this is why I find "book exclusive" content for these book versions of online columns so annoying.  Sure, it's there to get you to want to buy the book, but really it just creates a weird accessibility issue.

Um, pretty sure Seven Samurai was filmed in 4:3.  Or, rather, "Academy ratio", which is basically the same thing.

I'm going to be staying with my mom for a couple of weeks next month and suspect that by the time I'm gone, I'll have changed her TV settings, gotten her a new ISP, etc.

I think a lot of TVs in public places (restaurants, hotels, etc.) are set to do that automatically because they don't want the viewer to notice that they were too cheap to pay for actual HD content for the swanky HD TV.  It's really annoying, but I sort of see why they do it.  And, at least if you're in a hotel, you…

The assumption is that anyone watching Star Trek III would already be fluent in Klingon.

From what I can tell, they weren't showing "full screen" (4:3) versions of the movies—the ones we usually associate with "pan and scan"—but rather 16:9 versions of even-wider field movies (like 2.35:1).  I suspect that what was going on was that Netflix used versions originally mastered for HD cable channels, which…

Netflix 2: Crop Dustin'

Ugh, just tried to search for that entry, only to discover it was book-only.