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Brainiac On Banjo: A Million Pounds of Bond

Brainiac On Banjo: A Million Pounds of Bond

Posted on by Mike Gold

Diamonds are forever. Hold one up and then caress it, touch it, stroke it and undress it. I can see every part. Nothing hides in the heart to hurt me. “Diamonds Are Forever,” written by John Barry and Don Black.

Generally speaking, I’m not interested in “reality” television. It’s not really reality, and when I want reality from my ol’ cathode ray tube I’ll watch the news until I decide what I really should be doing is updating my will.

There are exceptions. A thousand years ago, I watched Ice Road Truckers because the contestants were as ludicrous as the concept of hauling many tons of stuff across frozen-over lakes that, under the weight of same, could kill the aspirants and — more important — destroy their swag. Much more recently, I’ve been enjoying the challenges of James May, of car wrecking fame, as he ridicules modern manhood by attempting even more ludicrous but somewhat more useful DIY projects. However, these shows (Man Lab is the best, Toy Stories and The Reassembler are almost as entertaining) are built, by James May, to revolve around James May, who is clever, honest, committed and wonderfully sardonic. He’s a mere 60 years old, but probably looks a bit older because he’s spent decades working next to Jeremy Clarkson. He’s also done a number of food-oriented shows and has lunched with Gordon Ramsay, consuming bull penis and rotten shark. Funny stuff. Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo: A Million Pounds of Bond” →

Brainiac On Banjo: It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s… the Mayor?

Brainiac On Banjo: It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s… the Mayor?

Posted on by Mike Gold

Oh, it’s a long, long while from May to December, but the days grow short when you reach September. When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame, one hasn’t got time for the waiting game. “September Song” written by Teemu Brunila, Ben Hudson, Jon Cobbe Hume, and John Paul Cooper.

If you haven’t been keeping up with the peoples of steel, well, I understand. It’s hard to find DC books that aren’t about Batman. It might come as a surprise that DC Comics still publishes Bat-less books. And now that DC’s daddy has licensed their Looney Tunes characters out to Dynamite Entertainment, it’s even harder.

But if you search the racks a bit you’ll see that there are quite a few DC titles that feature the many various Supermans flying around the ever-morphing DCU comics that do not have Batman grabbing the staples, at least not in every issue. In fact, you might be confused with all the different Super men, women, children and pets. If you’re in Metropolis, and you look up at the sky, if you don’t see a fast moving red blur, you’re probably visiting an Earth with four digits.

The fact that all these Supers, with the arguable exception of Krypto, keep trying on new costumes does not help lesson the mob mentality one bit.

So it might come as a surprise that some major changes have been going on and, even more shocking, these charges are evolutionary and not the result of typical obsessive-compulsive rebooting.

As we have seen in last week’s Superman #850 (an up-priced anniversary issue because it ends in “50”), Daily Planet E-I-C Perry White, on leave of absence, has decided to run for mayor of the City of Tomorrow. Before he took leave prior to his announcement, he put the Planet in the hands of his star reporter, Lois Lane.

Now, that would be unlikely to happen on whichever Earth we happen to be living on. Lane has won more Pulitzers than the next ten winners combined. She is worth far more to the paper as a reporter. But this isn’t our Earth, and on hers she deserves the appointment, if she wants it.

In 2023, the existence of a women editor-in-chief of a great metropolitan newspaper is no longer rare. In fact, as print papers have dwindled down to a precious few, women editors are doing better than the medium for which they toil. Yeah, that isn’t much, and if this were British opera you might take that as a sign of their end times.

Should Perry win, should Lois become permanent E-I-C — and either can happen without the other — all kinds of interesting plot paths come into being. How would the job affect her marriage to Clark? How would the job accept her marriage to Kal-El? To their kid, to their family, to the other Supers and to the Justice League members she knows so well? And… what about Lex Luthor? Besides, if she’s running the Planet, she is unlikely to have time to fall out of helicopters.

What kind of mayor would Perry be? Does he have sufficient political skills to get anything accomplished? What sort of enemies will he make, and how will they act out? Will Perry have any sort of relationship with the Planet and his old friends? Will Mayor White’s work place those friends in jeopardy? Hoe long will he be mayor — and what happens after that ends? Senator White? President White?

In fact, Perry White had been mayor of Metropolis on one of the best known infinite Earths. It was revealed that Perry had been mayor before he went to the Daily Planet in the hit television show The Adventures of Superman, a program whose exposure and longevity is among the highest in history — it’s in the I Love Lucy class. Which is vaguely funny as Superman crossed over into Lucy.

Of course, there’s a 500 pound gorilla with Kryptonite ray vision sulking in the corner waiting for a big-ass strike to be resolved. What will happen to all of this as James Gunn’s Superman Legacy comes out — July 11, 2025, as time currently is reckoned in Hollywood? Does that establish another “sell-by” date for the masters of seat-of-your-pants circumlocution at Warner Bros Discovery? Hell, given the past ten years or so, will Warner Bros Discovery still be a thing? I wouldn’t bet either way.

There could be some interesting and fairly original stories coming out of all this. Then again, it all could wind up looking like a 30-car pileup in a blizzard on I-80 in Pennsylvania. We can and need to pay attention to history, but be careful about taking odds on the endgame.

But I like the sound of a kick-ass Mayor Perry White.

Brainiac On Banjo: A.I’s Just A Photocopier.

Brainiac On Banjo: A.I’s Just A Photocopier.

Posted on by Mike Gold

I’m all alone, so are we all. We destroyed the government. We’re destroying time. No more problems on the way — Clones (We’re All), written by Alice Cooper.

According to last Friday’s Hollywood Reporter, “A federal judge on Friday upheld a finding from the U.S. Copyright Office that a piece of art created by AI [artificial intelligence] is not open to protection. The ruling was delivered in an order turning down Stephen Thaler’s bid challenging the government’s position refusing to register works made by AI. Copyright law has “never stretched so far” to “protect works generated by new forms of technology operating absent any guiding human hand,” U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell found.”

That certainly is good news to creators of all sorts — not just artists, but writers and other producers of copyrightable or patentable products. However, I suspect the majority of such gifted people will not waste carbon dioxide emitting a deep sigh of relief. Damn near all of them have been to this rodeo dozens of times; more likely hundreds. The longer you stay in the business, the more you slip on corporate dogshit.

Do not think the producers and corporate princes reading about this ruling will say “well, jeez, maybe we should start acting in a morally acceptable manner.” Hell, no. The vast majority of media moguls who possess an “annual compensation package” in excess of ten million dollars per annum confuse having their package reduced by as a direct kick to their… package. Whereas that seems fair to me, my WGA and AFTRA memberships expired a while ago. Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo: A.I’s Just A Photocopier.” →

Brainiac On Banjo: The Rasputin of TV Animation!

Brainiac On Banjo: The Rasputin of TV Animation!

Posted on by Mike Gold

“Now it’s been ten thousand years. Man has cried a billion tears for what he never knew. Now man’s reign is through, but through the eternal night the twinkling of starlight so very far away, maybe it’s only yesterday.” In The Year 2525, written by Rick Evans.

For a brief few years, Rasputin was a very powerful man in pre-Soviet Russia. He pretty much ran the joint during World War I and was perceived generally as a mystic and a healer; in fact, very little is known about his life. However, we do know a lot about his deaths. He made it through a near-fatal hemorrhage in his thigh and groin in 1912. Two years later, he survived being stabbed in the stomach.

In December of 1916, members of the Tsar’s inner circle decided he he had undue influence over the Tsar and was a good part of the reason the nation suffered from threats of revolution Thus, they decided to kill him. He was poisoned. Twice. That trick didn’t work either time. Then he was shot three times – once in the forehead, which has got to hurt — but he recovered from all that as well. Shot a fourth time, the conspirators dropped him off of the Petrovsky Bridge into the Malaya Nevka River. It took authorities two weeks to find his body, which had been trapped underneath the thick river ice. His boss abdicated less than three months later.

Fun fact: according to Wikipedia, Rasputin’s “daughter Matryona emigrated to France after the October Revolution and then to the United States. There, she worked as a dancer and then a lion tamer in a circus.” She died in a Los Angeles suburb in 1977.

Clearly Rasputin was a hard man to do away with and, remarkably, so is the animated television series Futurama. Happily, fate smiled on the better of the two.

If there’s an award for aggressive conflation, I hereby bestow said award upon myself.

Futurama, created and developed by Matt Groening and David X. Cohen, ran on the Fox network from 1999 to 2003. It returned as a series of four home video-first “movies” in 2007, was revived at Comedy Central between 2010 and 2013, and in July Hulu will begin airing 20 new episodes over two “seasons,” which, these days, could mean anything. Of course, everything — including the movies, each of which have been chopped up into four-parters — is in syndication and has and might still appear on more cable networks than Dick Cavett. Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo: The Rasputin of TV Animation!” →

Brainiac On Banjo: Billion Dollar Babies?

Brainiac On Banjo: Billion Dollar Babies?

Posted on by Mike Gold

Hey girl, we’ve got to get out of this place. There’s got to be something better than this. I need you, but I hate to see you this way. If I were Superman then we’d fly away. (Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman, written by Ray Davies.

This past week has been quite full of two things, the first one being news.

Among the very few items in the news that promoted a sense of hope and tranquility was the communication from the very fan-friendly co-head of Warner’s DC Studios James Gunn, who tweeted the eventual possibility of a big-ass Marvel / DC crossover movie. He pointed out that he remains good friends with Marvel Media Emperor Kevin Feige, particularly with Gunn’s third and final Guardians of the Galaxy movie set to drop any day now, and that they talk all the time.

Well, that’s amusing. Maybe it will happen, although I have no doubt that would come off no earlier than a year with a “7” in it at best. But I’ve been through this before over on the publishing side, and you’ll note that the last time a DC / Marvel comic came out was well before any of Marc Alan Fishman’s multitude of children were born. When the first such effort was announced the word around DC Comics was “why should we give Marvel such a massive promotion opportunity?” Yet the 1976 Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man tabloid tome was published, and it was worthy. Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo: Billion Dollar Babies?” →

Trailer Recap: Blue Beetle, Across the SpiderVerse, Barbie, Ahsoka, and one more.

Trailer Recap: Blue Beetle, Across the SpiderVerse, Barbie, Ahsoka, and one more.

Posted on by Bob Harrison

What a huge week in trailer releases this has been!?! All of my nerdy fanboy nerve endings are buzzing with anticipation for some of the amazing geeky productions that are headed our way. While there are already a couple of big movies on the horizon like this week’s Super Mario Bros and May’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol.3 along with June’s The Flash, there are some very cool things coming up right behind them.

Blue Beetle

The first trailer that I came across this week was for the Blue Beetle movie that releases August 18th from director Angel Manuel Soto staring Xolo Maridueña as Jamie Reyes. While this is the last piece of DC Studios content that is not 100% under authorship of the new regime of James Gunn and Peter Safran, we are hoping it sticks and is the type of tone that we get from the new DC Universe. It has an excellent mix of seriousness, humor, responsibility, and hope. Those are what I am looking for in superhero stories.

Continue reading “Trailer Recap: Blue Beetle, Across the SpiderVerse, Barbie, Ahsoka, and one more.” →

So Long and Thanks for the Fish, Man #082: At Home With House.

So Long and Thanks for the Fish, Man #082: At Home With House.

Posted on by Marc Alan Fishman

Is there a German word for when you finish a rather “heavy” show via streaming, where you just need to consume something lighter or familiar? Maybe it’s gutentelestreamafunk or something. Well. That was me not too long ago. After making my way through a rewatch of Better Call Saul from the very beginning, the most recent season (now I fear last) of Doom Patrol, and catching up on Barry? My mind was mush. It didn’t want new in spite of my long list (and yes, I have a google doc of series to catch). My noodle craved comfort food. And as strange as it would be for anyone to say it? House is like a plate of chicken tendies and fries for my cerebellum.

I wasn’t a House fan when the series began in (goes to look it up…) 2004 (so, you know, almost 20 years ago. Yikes.). It was an accidental taping of the show that kickstarted me on the series in the first place. You see, no cap kiddos, I had set out to tape the upcoming WWE Smackdown program on our local Fox affiliate. But my DVR was an idiot — and opted to tape the 4th season premiere of House instead. When I’d denoted then that I wouldn’t get to enjoy a 15 minute match between the demon Kane against Montel Vontavious Porter that would end in a disappointing disqualification… I decided to employ a bit of advice gleaned from the twitter feed of comic book stalwart Erik Larsen:

Every comic book is a jumping on point if it’s good enough.

So too, might one apply that ethos to a television show, right?

I knew nothing of House save only that it starred a British man doing his best American snarky accent, playing a mean version of Sherlock Holmes, but as a doctor. Also, I knew my wife liked the show, and she certainly has good taste. She married me! But I digress.

The fourth season of House was the one (for those who don’t remember September 28th, 2007 as well as I do) where Dr. House has lost his previous team of diagnosticians (two quit, one was fired out of spite),  and decides to lean into the then-still-fresh notion of reality TV to hire himself a new team to replace them. Now, for those waiting to call me out? The fourth season premiere of House doesn’t actually “feature” the cavalcade of cohorts House whittles down into the main cast until literally the last shot of the episode. The rest of the episode itself is fairly typical for the show’s main structure — a patient is introduced in the cold open, and throughout the course of 40ish minutes of content, House barrages said patient in test after test while weird and strange symptoms further complicate the issue. Right before all hope is lost, someone mutters something, the music abruptly shifts, and Gregory House has solved the seemingly unsolvable case. Continue reading “So Long and Thanks for the Fish, Man #082: At Home With House.” →

Brainiac On Banjo: Should Hope Reign In Burbank?

Brainiac On Banjo: Should Hope Reign In Burbank?

Posted on by Mike Gold

Hope for the best, expect the worst! Some drink champagne, some die of thirst. No way of knowing which way it’s going. — Mel Brooks, Hope For The Best (Expect The Worst)

When Warner Bros Discovery revealed James Gunn and Peter Safran would be running their all-new DC Studios (as if there’s more than one), many of us lifted their faces out of our own puke in the hope it was the dawning of a new day. Well, with luck, it will be… although you can’t really blame us for taking a wait-and-see attitude.

I certainly appreciate and trust James Gunn. I love his work on the Guardians of the Galaxy and Peacemaker, and his The Suicide Squad was great fun. Better still, he treated my oldest friend and honored collaborator John Ostrander right, and that means so much to me I’d throw Gunn’s bail.

What I do not trust is, in order: 1) The “Hollywood” bureaucracy. 2) Warner-anything merging with anybody, be it Time Inc, America Online, AT&T or Discovery. Each merger made things worse for creators and end-users alike. 3) Warner Brothers Discovery in particular, and particularly how they turned the ridiculously overpriced HBOMax into a ridiculously overpriced, frustrating, mindless, and ultimately useless turd rapidly floating downstream into the sewer. Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo: Should Hope Reign In Burbank?” →

Breaking News: James Gunn Reveals the Plan for the Near Future of the DC Universe in Film and TV

Breaking News: James Gunn Reveals the Plan for the Near Future of the DC Universe in Film and TV

Posted on by Bob Harrison

James Gunn, the co-custodian of the DC Universe (DCU) for Warner Bros. Discovery announced today the plan for what is coming out now and what is to come and it is amazing.

Gunn, along with Peter Safran, have addressed the properties that are currently in the pipeline, and in his video he details how they fit into the new vision which is being developed as an eight to ten year plan. The first “Chapter” of the DC story will be under the umbrella of “Gods and Monsters.”

There was so much exciting proposed content in this six minute video. We encourage everyone to check it out. Gunn’s enthusiasm about the DC characters radiates through the clip. It is infectious. I am more excited about these films and shows coming to fruition than I have been in a long time.

Here is a list of what is new on the docket in the first portion of “Gods and Monsters”: Continue reading “Breaking News: James Gunn Reveals the Plan for the Near Future of the DC Universe in Film and TV” →

Brainiac On Banjo: Streaming Ahoy!

Brainiac On Banjo: Streaming Ahoy!

Posted on by Mike Gold

The reading today is from the book of Punter, Chapter 9, Verse 17: “All we have to fear, is me.” – Firesign Theater

Presuming climate change doesn’t do us in first, Americans are about a decade way from abandoning the concept of the continuous media vehicle. In English, that means the idea of television (and radio before 1962) had lengthy “seasons” and, if successful, would return for a following season.

Of course, this was well before streaming became a thing.

Unlike the rest of magazine publishing, the comic book medium also was a continuous media vehicle: numbering was consecutive and rarely split into “volumes” of, say, twelve monthly numbers per year. Nobody cares what consecutive issue numbers were applied to Time Magazine in August 1975, but if you ask the issue number for the X-Men cover-dated that same month there are enough comic book enthusiasts who know the answer to that – #94, for those who came in late – to fill Yankee Stadium. At least the #94 that was in use in August, 1975. Around that time, the late, legendary comics retailer Joe Sarno pointed out in an interview if you put consecutive numbering on something, some people are going to collect it. Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo: Streaming Ahoy!” →