my writing sucked tonight. Should I try again tomorrow?
Being an ally is not an identity; it’s a process. It isn’t easy, or painless. Allies have an obligation to learn, to seek out understanding; to follow the examples of the people whose experiences we want to respect; to stand back and listen to their voices.
Along the way we will make mistakes, and it falls on all of us to understand that about each other. We are all flawed. We are all imperfect. There is no such thing as a perfect ally.
Sigmund Freud, Analyze This
I am far more amused than I should be that the first two tracks of Madonna’s new album are apparently called “Unapologetic Bitch” and “Bitch, I’m Madonna.” Jealousy and the sudden realization that you’re entirely outside of the zeitgeist, thy name is Madge.
I took the concept of “home” for granted for a long time. I thought it was a place, a constant, a given. I never understood, until things changed, that “home” was something my parents actively built around me, all the time – a construction, a collection of comforting samenesses, a privilege. The fact that I got to have a dad at all – let alone such a marvellous, funny, devoted one – is among the luckiest coincidences of my life. And for months after he died, I didn’t understand what happened next. My home was dead too, I thought. My family was broken.
MARVEL SUPER HEROES SECRET WARS: BATTLEWORLD BOX SET SLIPCASE
Get the complete legacy of Marvel’s SECRET WARS saga in this action-packed, eleven-volume box set! Featuring the original heroes-vs.-villains showdown on the Beyonder’s Battleworld, the big B’s journey to Earth and the line-wide crossover that ensued, Nick Fury’s highly hush-hush Secret War, and more! All the tie-ins, follow-ups and alternate takes — including a Spidey-centric look at the first Secret Wars, the wildest Thing adventure of all time, and a rematch of good and evil as a very different group get whisked to Battleworld! Plus: an entire volume full of all the special features we could find, as well as a poster showcasing Alex Ross’ sublime version of the iconic cover to SECRET WARS #1! This is one box set that goes above and Beyonder! Includes MARVEL SUPER HEROES SECRET WARS: TO BATTLEWORLD AND BACK PREMIERE HC, MARVEL SUPER HEROES SECRET WARS PREMIERE HC, THING: BATTLEWORLD PREMIERE HC, SECRET WARS II VOL. 1 PREMIERE HC, SECRET WARS II VOL. 2 PREMIERE HC, SECRET WARS II VOL. 3 PREMIERE HC, SECRET WARS II VOL. 4 PREMIERE HC, MARVEL SUPER HEROES SECRET WARS AFTERMATH PREMIERE HC, SECRET WAR PREMIERE HC, BEYOND THE SECRET WARS PREMIERE HC, MARVEL SUPER HEROES SECRET WARS: BEHIND THE SCENES PREMIERE HC; POSTER.
Rated T+ …$500.00
ISBN: 978-0-7851-9751-5MARVEL SUPER HEROES SECRET WARS ACTIVITY BOOK FACSIMILE COLLECTION
Love Marvel’s classic SECRET WARS story, but wish it was a little more interactive? Well, this is the book for you! Discover — or rediscover — the unbridled joy of being a child of the ’80s with this awesome replica collection of tie-in coloring books, sticker albums and stamp books! It’s got adventures, it’s got games, it’s got puzzles, it’s got posters — it even has stickers! (We’ve replaced the original stamps with stickers in our version – no licking required!) Dig out your crayons and indulge in some unadulterated SECRET WARS fun! If the Beyonder had this to enjoy, he would never have made it to Earth for SECRET WARS II! Collecting the SECRET WARS: THE CRIME OF CENTURIES and ESCAPE FROM DOOM coloring books, the SECRET WARS: SECRET OF SPIDER-MAN’S SHIELD and TOWER OF DOOM sticker books, the SECRET WARS: STAMP FUN and SPIDER-MAN’S STAMP FUN stamp books, and more.
160 PGS./All Ages …$24.99
ISBN: 978-0-7851-9815-4
Man. It’s going to be expensive to be a Secret Wars completist come March. (It’s fascinating to me the way in which Marvel is seemingly riding the Secret Wars brand into the ground in 2015.)
Toyo Harada is the most dangerous human being on the planet. Imbued with incredible powers of the mind, he has spent his life guiding humanity from the shadows. But today he is a wanted man. His powers are public knowledge, his allies have turned to enemies, and he is hunted by every government on the planet. Instead of surrendering, Harada has one last unthinkable gambit to play: to achieve more, faster, and with less, he will build a coalition of the powerful, the unscrupulous and the insane. No longer content to demand a better future, he will recruit a violent legion from the darkest corners of the Earth to fight for it. The battle for utopia begins now.
“This is a real chance for us to play around with some super-villain tropes the same way we played with super-hero tropes in Harbinger,” said writer Joshua Dysart. “This time the tropes we’re playing with are an ‘evil alien,’ a ‘robot soldier,’ a ‘mad scientist,’ a ‘political extremist’ (the most terrifying of all monsters), and, of course, a ‘global dictator’ bent on taking over the world. So all of that breeds new fun characters to throw into the Valiant Universe.”
From the PR for Imperium, the follow-up to Valiant’s Harbinger, which launches next year. Looking forward to it.
CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE MIGHTY AVENGERS #6
AL EWING (W) • LUKE ROSS (A)
COVER BY Sanford Greene
• Existential horror from beyond as CORTEX Incorporated drops the mask – and shows its true face!
• For one of the Mighty Avengers, the nightmare is starting all over again…
• Is this story even in continuity? Are YOU even in continuity? LOOK IN THE MIRROR – WHAT IF YOU’RE NOT?
Someone – I suspect alewing – writes the greatest solicits.
Chad Hoffman: We had a great meeting about it and at the end of it I said, “I think you’re talking about something that kind of has the feel – for wont of a better TV term – sort of a soap opera, but not in a negative sense. Why don’t you go back and take a look at Peyton Place (the movie, not the series) and think about that piece with the quaint town and what was going on behind the scenes and just think about how something like that was done; [it] might jive with what you’re trying to do and see if there’s a connection there. If there is, come back because I’m very interested.”
Mark Frost: We hated it [Peyton Place], we didn’t even finish watching. We watched maybe half an hour. It was just a dead piece of work at that point. It said nothing to us of any relevance whatsoever and we looked at each other and said, “Why are we wasting our time with this?”
Mark Frost, co-creator of Twin Peaks, and Chad Hoffman, then-VP of drama development at ABC, talk about the input the network had on the creation of the show back in the late ‘80s. From Reflections: An Oral History of Twin Peaks.