I didn’t like the look when helmetless, armorless pictures first started spreading around, but danged if it didn’t work out beautifully for the character.

I’m one of those people who genuinely believes overpopulation is a serious threat, no matter how many experts claim otherwise, so I also found myself growing sympathetic to Thanos’ cause.

I just got home from the theater, and was thinking about this topic a little bit during the drive. Here’s where I fall on it: it doesn’t matter that most of these dead characters’ futures are assured, because as of right now, they are dead.

Seems all these event call-backs to classic Simpsons episodes rely on the show’s first decade for inspiration. Hmm.

I used to really love the show, but it has this kind of barely-concealed treacly earnestness (especially the kid-centric stories that seemed to occur more frequently in later seasons) that I found tiresome after a while.

I for one was sort of fascinated with Manky while playing DKC back in the day and would have placed him higher. He popped up sporadically enough for me to believe the encounters were all with the same dude who who just really had it in for DK, but why? Was it a clan dispute or something more personal? Is he a…

I think you’re missing the point of the article, indeed of most of this particular media company’s listicles. Notice that number 14 is “Getting hit by a car,” and behind it at number 15 is “Vodka Redbull.” All the other words and numbers in this article are meaningless set dressing for this set-up and punchline.

And there was much rejoicing...

By 1998, I had amassed a pretty respectable VHS collection. I used to blow all my minimum wage dough at Suncoast, on the classics and niche audience items not found in department stores.

I was a victim of the glowing Lay’s cappuccino potato chips review. That partially eaten bag of blandly sweet starch discs sat in the pantry for 2 years before I finally threw them out. Mostly solid junk food recommendations otherwise. No hard feelings, Mike.

Decades later, I can still see it, that other commercial, even when I close my eyes.

Holy underbite, true believers!

If it were DC, this would absolutely play during an action sequence or end credits.

Had they had Spider-Man get the symbiote, say during the Infinity War...

I agree with everything you just wrote here. You can make a compelling story with the concept you detailed, but making it Venom unavoidably invites comparison to Venom’s legacy.

Just speaking for myself here, but what makes Venom interesting to me isn’t that he’s a morally ambiguous dude in a scary looking symbiotic suit. It’s the personal nature of their shared vendetta against Spider-Man and Peter Parker, how their shared knowledge of his personal life and and weaknesses make him a…

That’s exactly what I’m saying. The symbiote looks like a horrible version of the Spidey-suit because it was the Spidey-suit for a time. Spider-Man’s eventual rejection of the symbiote is what drives its rage, just as Eddie Brock’s rivalry with Peter Parker and humiliation as a photographer drove his. Their…

No, DC did Suicide Squad very early on, introducing a bunch of villains and antihero characters without properly establishing their relationships to the off-camera heroes. Not having that setup undercuts the novelty of the concept that they’re the ones we’re focusing on this time. This would still be a problem even…

Why does every movie have to fold into the expanded universe?

More skepticism than hate for me. I don’t understand the point of a Venom movie at this point in the Spideyverse/MCU. More so than most hero/villain relationships, Venom is a character whose motivations and very appearance are directly tied to Spider-Man, whose still very early on in his own career in the MCU. If…