Except that peaceful vs. radical is not just simplistic. It's plain wrong. MLK was a radical. He was a communist who believed in reproductive justice, and was very savvy about the use of violence and the threat of it to achieve his aims. And Malcolm X's radicalism was extremely calculated, not least because he was…

Except that bigotry isn't illogical. People like to say that, because it sounds high-minded and inclusive, but the fact is that in order to develop the natural human tendency towards xenophobia into actual bigotry, you usually need concrete economic or political reasons, even if no one admits to them. The most…

One of the things that Apocalypse, for all its flaws, crystalized for me is that the MCU is actually pretty bad at creating a sense of community between its characters. It loves to bash them together, because team movies make a lot of money, but it's never entirely convincing that these characters choose to spend…

Exactly. Why do we need yet another documentary "revealing" a truth that everyone knows? All it does is reinforce the lie by artificially extending its life.

Exactly. Why do we need yet another documentary "revealing" a truth that everyone knows? All it does is reinforce the lie by artificially extending its life.

Everyone is redeemable. All it takes is trying to atone for the bad things you've done and taking steps to make sure you don't do them again. Victor hasn't done any of this. On the contrary, he keeps doubling down on his worst impulses, sinking further and further into self-pity and self-absorption. It's not that…

I've seen at least one interview with Nick Spencer where he basically says as much.

No, I wanted people (including the writers of the comic) to get why making Captain America a Nazi was bad, instead of saying stuff like "you don't get it, the Nazis are a metaphor for Donald Trump" or "well, what do you care, Hydra aren't really Nazis."

I don't know. The sense I've gotten in the last few days, in the wake of the Hydra!Cap clusterfuck, is that a lot of people don't really know what the Nazis did. I mean, they know broadly that the Nazis were "bad" and that they killed Jews and other ethnic groups, but they have no idea the scope and specificity of…

Because no one has bought it, or because Sony isn't releasing it to international clients? I have no idea what the business model of their streaming platform is.

I think it's a case of a role that is perfectly suited to the actor. Sometimes, as in this episode, the demands of the story prove too much, but most of the time, Hartnett is exactly the right person for the job.

I think the reason we think of Victor as a good person is that in the first two seasons Vanessa was so fond of him and worked so hard to bring him out of his shell. But it's been well established that Vanessa is a terrible judge of character, and I agree that the core of arrogance and selfishness that we've been…

I think the implication is that the ethnic cleansing of the Apache was done at Jared's instigation (which is more or less historically accurate; the US army was deployed in response to ranching interests to remove and destroy Native populations). I mean, there's a reason why the Apache were so incensed that they…

Kipling uses the phrase unironically, as a justification for colonialism and exploitation. If anything, someone directing it towards Jekyll would be using it to justify the racism he encounters, not recognize its unfairness.

Wow, they actually made a second season of Powers? I kind of assumed that we'd made a collective decision as a society to just forget that that show had ever existed. It's a bit of a shame, because in terms of how it addresses superheroes, the basic concept of Powers was better than just about any show except Alphas…

Wait, really? I thought the absence of the show itself from yesterday's WOT was a mistake. Do you really mean to say that AMC launched a show and then immediately put it on hiatus for a week?

Hey, anything that gets his paws off Batman and Superman is at least worth a shot.

I know you're joking, but that's actually a really good reason to hate someone.

Surely Batman v Superman is the perfect encapsulation of what Trump's governing strategy will look like? Make a bombastic, top-heavy, self-serious product that claims to be powerful and macho but actually just advertises its stupidity and immaturity. Rake in a lot of money while destroying your line's long-term…

Cillian Murphy is currently doing a very good job as a dead-eyed, social climbing gangster in Peaky Blinders. It's a show that I keep telling myself I'm going to drop, because it is ridiculously over the top (and its use of modern music to contrast with the 1920s setting went from clever to overused in about 30…