So which Democrat do you hope wins the nomination?

I didn’t learn a thing from the “Verb” video — it’s not very well-constructed for educational purposes -- but goddamn if that kid isn’t having a fantastic day.

I am not complaining about a lack of black candidates specifically; I am complaining that the four white people in the lead are all terrible on racial issues. I would be happy with at least one candidate who isn’t terrible on racial issues, skin color be damned. Bernie hates to even address race as its own topic;…

Even among Trump’s white detractors, there’s a serious racism problem: they may not like Trump, but many of them like to weaponize his victory to denounce “identity politics”.

I would say all the History Rock episodes are guilty of telling coloring-book versions of what actually happened, but “Elbow Room” is uniquely terrible in its glossing over genocide.

VB’s greatest sin is that it went up its own butt in terms of fleshing out its world, constructing an ever-elaborate backstory. Is there a vlue in world-building? Yes. Should there be so much world-building that it gets in the way of storytelling? No, it should be in service to storytelling.

If you grew up in the 70s, this video may have been your introduction to Manifest Destiny: it was simply that America needed more “elbow room”. Pay close attention to how much they talk about the extermination of the native peoples, oh wait, they DON’T talk about that. They do mention that those pesky savages were a…

I’m going to guess at a twist. So Routh-Superman was identified as the Paragon of Truth because he has seen almost unimaginable loss ... but you know who’s seen even more? Pariah. And Pariah is right there at Vanishing Point for the big battle, so it seems to hold up to the prophecy about the big battle. It also means…

“I’ve also never seen Black Lightning”

Which superhero shows are better?

So once again I must ask: why is “Black Lightning” not the subject of weekly reviews?  It’s by far the best superhero show going, in terms of plot, themes, and acting.  It treads into territory other shows refuse to.  And if you saw last night’s episode, you saw how the potentially-silly conceit of a character meeting…

This was a much better episode than the one before it; the plot is far less of a straight line, indeed it kept me guessing. And, I’m glad they introduced the Book of Destiny as a reset button. I observe that the Monitor said using it would drive a person insane, not that it wouldn’t fix things.

... I do want to comment on this. I was just watching the first part of “Crisis on Infinite Earths” earlier, and I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as this R&M. The big difference? On R&M, I had a sense that the writers were trying to surprise me, like they started out with a concept and bothered to ask, “okay, what can…

I was good with this episode. It seemed to be built upon annoyance with both “Tne Neverending Story” (or some more recent iteration) and “A Talking Cat!?!” but added in some thoughts about soul-bonds and how concepts like “soul mates” are kind of controlling. They ran with it, I was happy, but I’m just a simple…

“Now, apparently everybody is on the same Earth. Does that mean there’s another Lena and another Alex?”

Oh my Lord, just imagine a Lena / Good Janet scene.

Dull episode. Here’s the problem: for all the high stakes in this, the show also narrowed itself down to exactly one resolution far too early. Think of it like this: the classic rebuttal to “well of COURSE Batman’s not going to die from the Penguin’s death trap, so there’s no tension?” is “but HOW will he escape and…

Taheera Rashad robbed my heart, does that count?

Bianca over at Brave News Blog has her head screwed on refreshingly straight:

Lena’s my kind of mad scientist: she thinks she can improve mankind, is ready to go there, and refuses to cross certain lines. And when her plan falls flat, she laments that sometimes the good guys lose. I can’t say I completely agree with Lena — although, if I had the power to make humankind less treacherous, I think…