Author: Graeme McMillan

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One Man and His

Out of nowhere the other day, I remembered the 1980s TV show Street Hawk. For those who were lucky enough not to grow up in such a time when we were so starved for fun and attention that Street Hawk felt like an somehow worthwhile viewing option, I’ll quickly describe the high concept behind the show: a dude had a high tech motorbike, and was a vigilante whose activities somehow always involved the use of his high tech motorbike. Please note: it was a 1980s TV show, so when I say “high tech,” what I really mean is, occasionally it had a computer display of the road ahead with impossibly crude graphics. Nonetheless: that was the show.

As uninspired as Street Hawk undoubtedly sounds — and it really was, don’t worry — it’s worth pointing out that it was part of a strange trend for 1980s action shows where the entire formula amounted to nothing more than “entirely average man is vigilante, but don’t worry because he has a special vehicle of some sort.” The obvious hit of this genre was, of course, Knight Rider — David Hasselhoff and his talking car, a concept so popular and important to so many men’s childhoods that it has been rebooted no less than two times in the past few decades, shockingly — but it wasn’t just Knight Rider and Street Hawk; there was also Airwolf and Blue Thunder, which shared a vehicle if not a sense of self-seriousness. (Airwolf was the more fun of the two helicopter shows, I remember, but I’m not sure how true that really is, and how much I just remember that being the case because I preferred the theme song as a kid.) I’m sure there were other such shows that didn’t make it to Scotland, too; I was probably spared something about one man and his computer-powered submarine, or his technologically advanced scooter, thankfully.

Looking back now, it seems so strange that “one man and his vehicle” was popular enough as an idea to support multiple shows overlapping on the screen and my subconsciousness at the same time. There’s probably something to be said about the ways in which it demonstrated our growing love of gadgets or a dehumanized on-screen hero, not to mention the implied glamour of how much such items must have cost. I didn’t think about any of this at the time these shows were on, of course. Instead, I was 10 years old or so, convinced that I’d never be able to drive a care or ride a motorbike myself, but nonetheless thinking to myself how cool it would be to have a vehicle that could go so fast, and drive itself while I got more focused on saving the small town from some existential threat of the week.

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The Double, Triple, Hidden Life of Me

In rediscovering the fictions of my youth, I’ve been remembering the world as I imagined it as an impressionable teenager, filled with romance and an imagination fueled by European arthouse movies where melancholy was almost certainly the order of any given day. I couldn’t swear to what prompted by interest in the movies of Krzysztof Kieślowski and his ilk — I feel as if, at some point in my mid-teens, I told myself that my thing was going to be that I was a movie fan and so I bought the magazines and the books I thought that was supposed to entail, and suddenly I was let loose in a world of influences and stories I had no business in.

(What prompted this belief that I was into The Art of Cinema? I genuinely have no recollection, but I do remember subscribing to Empire and Sight and Sound at an inexplicably young age, even if the latter was something I only read a handful of times before I lost interest in how humorless and sterile it all seemed at the time; Empire, which sought to bring a music paper sensibility to movie writing, was far more my speed and I kept that up for years after.)

However I ended up in that mindset, there was a point in my mid-teens where I was increasingly watching European movies about the existential weight of the world in which effortlessly beautiful actresses pouted and frowned when faced with the meaningless cruelty of the world, surrounded by old men who also frowned but found new life when faced with their decades-younger, naive-but-somehow-wise muses. (I still love things like The Double Life of Veronique or Three Colours Red, but it’s easy to see in them the roots of what would become the Manic Pixie Dream Girl cliche of American cinema years later, alas.)

Rewatching such movies now, they’re still filled with breathtaking, aching moments of real beauty, of human frailty and kindness and all kinds of feelings that words struggle to conjure. But I also see in them the beginnings of my overly romantic, melancholy nature and a tendency to tell myself a story in which sadness and pain can be noble or meaningful when the reality is something far more banal and empty. If I hadn’t fallen for such pretty sorrow in these movies as a teenager, how much of my life would’ve been different years, decades, later?

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As If No Time Has Passed

So, funny story: it was COVID after all.

I had convinced myself that it wasn’t, because (a) the home tests said negative, (b) I didn’t feel that sick (or so I kept thinking to myself, as much trying to reassure my own brain as anything else), and (c) COVID would just be really bad, and I didn’t want really bad, in the grand scheme of things. And yet, after going to the doctor at the weekend, the test result came back and… there it was.

To be fair, “there it was” ignores the fact that I actually read the email notification three times, because I had managed to convince myself so well that I was convinced that I’d misread something and there was actually no way I was testing positive. “Oh, maybe it’s just saying that positive was an option,” I thought, as if that was actually something that would be listed under the all-caps heading “RESULT” just for fun. (“Did you know you could test positive for COVID? It’s true!” would be the helpful, jaunty, explanation.)

When it comes down to it, I think I knew the whole time. I hadn’t been sleeping well for a few nights by that point, and when I’d wake up in the middle of the night, my brain was freewheeling like during my last COVID-experience; during the day, my concentration was gone, and I felt perpetually dizzy, outside of all the other (many) physical symptoms, and almost everything felt like a chore that made me generally grumpy to have to deal with. I’d felt like all of this before, even if I’d rather have told myself that it was just con crud and everything would sort itself out the next day, if only I got some sleep.

Of course, by the time I eventually got the diagnosis, it was apparently too late for medication to help. (There’s apparently a deadline starting from the date of first feeling symptoms.) Instead, all I could do — all I’m still doing, as you read this — is relaxing as much as possible and hoping for the speediest recovery possible. Sometimes, it’s 2020 again after all.

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The Boy in the

One of the strangest moments of this year’s San Diego Comic-Con was the moment of realization that I was never able to leave San Diego Comic-Con this year. I don’t mean that in the horror-movie-esque manner in which it immediately comes across — or maybe I do, come to think of it — but more in the sense of, after years of feeling jealous of those who’d find themselves in the hotels immediately surrounding the convention center during the show, I found myself in that situation and discovered that I hated it very much.

The appeal of staying in a hotel literally right next to the convention center is, I think, pretty immediately obvious: imagine not having a trek between the show and where you’re sleeping! You don’t even have to cross the road to get to your hotel! It’s right there! After many years of walking anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour at the end of the end of a long day to get to where I was staying, there was no small level of jealousy when it came to talking to people staying at the Hilton Bayfront or the Marriott Marquis, who’d talk about quickly headed back to their hotel between panels to take a brief break.

This year, I had the opportunity to be one of those lucky few, thanks to some last-minute shenanigans that I was not party to, only profiting from, and… I feel as if it might have been very bad for me, if that doesn’t sound entirely ungrateful.

Don’t get me wrong: yes, my commute time was minimal, and I got to be right in the center of the action for the entire show. On the other hand, I was right in the center of the action for the entire show. What I had never actually appreciated before this trip was how important those walks to and from the show each day actually were, in the sense of allowing my brain to get into work mode, or into de-stressing mode. What I had previously thoughts of as simply… well, just walks… were airlocks in and out of the real world, reminding me of a sense of perspective that I sorely lacked this year.

Instead of getting a chance to see what passes for normality in San Diego — the entire city does like to indulge Comic-Con, it has to be said — I found myself living inside the bubble for the entire time; everything had an activation, decals, and branding. I could hear the show at all times, it felt like. For everyone who’s still like I was, wishing that they could live the Comic-Con dream for the entire length of the show… be careful what you wish for… or at least learn to aim higher.

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The Movies of July 2024

You’ll have to excuse this one being a little late; I’ve been sick for the last few days, in a final gift given by San Diego Comic-Con. (It’s not COVID, at least according to the home tests; I’m waiting for the results of a test from an actual real doctor, but for some reason that’s taking awhile longer than I’d expected.) On the plus side, being sick has allowed me the opportunity to see some great films… which aren’t included in last month’s total, of course. Ah well; you’ll see for yourself next month. For now, enjoy what I did watch last month — which includes one of my old all-time favorites (The Double Life of Veronique), and a brand-new all-time favorite (Aftersun), as well as some trash (that new Exorcist)…

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The Comics of July 2024

Although it doesn’t look like it, I barely read any comics during San Diego Comic-Con; instead, I read an obscene amount before the show, and getting sick upon returning freed up time to do similar then, too.

  1. X-Men: The Wedding Special (2024) #1
  2. X-Factor (1986) #s 1-5
  3. Guardians of the Galaxy (2013) #s 11-13
  4. All-New X-Men (2012) #s 22-24
  5. Uncanny X-Men (2013) #s 15-22
  6. All-New X-Men (2012) #s 25-29
  7. Rom Spaceknight #s 46-47
  8. Uncanny X-Men (2013) #23
  9. All-New X-Men (2012) #30
  10. Annihilation 2099 #1
  11. Amazing Spider-Man Annual (2024) #1
  12. Black Panther: Blood Hunt #3
  13. Deadpool (2024) #4
  14. Doctor Strange (2023) #17
  15. Miles Morales: Spider-Man (2022) #22
  16. Spider-Man: Reign 2 #1
  17. Star Wars: The Inquisitors #1
  18. Venom (2021) #35
  19. Werewolf by Night: Blood Hunt #1
  20. Wolverine: Deep Cut #1
  21. X-Men: Psylocke – Blood Hunt #1
  22. Absolute Power #1
  23. Rom Spaceknight #48
  24. Uncanny X-Men (2013) #s 24-31
  25. All-New X-Men (2012) #s 31-36
  26. Cyclops (2014) #1
  27. Rom Spaceknight #s 49-50
  28. Cyclops (2014) #s 2-7
  29. All-New X-Men (2012) #37
  30. Uncanny X-Men Annual (2014) #1
  31. All-New X-Men Annual (2014) #1
  32. Uncanny X-Men (2013) #s 32-35
  33. Cyclops (2014) #s 8-12
  34. Guardians of the Galaxy & X-Men: The Black Vortex Alpha #1
  35. Guardians of the Galaxy (2013) #s 24-25
  36. All-New X-Men (2012) #s 38-39
  37. Guardians Team-Up #3
  38. Nova (2013) #8
  39. Captain Marvel (2014) #14
  40. Guardians of the Galaxy & X-Men: The Black Vortex Omega #1
  41. All-New X-Men (2012) #s 40-41
  42. Uncanny X-Men (2013) #600
  43. Extermination (2018) #s 1-5 (Original X-Men get sent home series)
  44. Rom Annual #2
  45. X-Factor (1986) #s 6-9
  46. Generation X (1994) #1
  47. GODS #6
  48. The Amazing Spider-Man (2022) #46
  49. Daredevil (2023) #7
  50. Thunderbolts (2023) #4
  51. Predator: The Last Hunt #2
  52. Ultimate Spider-Man (2024) #3
  53. Marvel Two-in-One (1974) #86
  54. X-Factor (1986) #s 10-12
  55. Wolverine (2020) #s 41-45
  56. Phoenix Resurrection #s 1-2
  57. Uncanny X-Men (2016) #1
  58. Uncanny X-Men (2018) #1
  59. X-Factor (1986) #s 13-15
  60. Legion of Super-Heroes (1980) #s 260-261
  61. Wolverine (2020) #s 46-50
  62. X-Factor (1986) #s 16-23
  63. Archie (2015) #s 1-12
  64. X-Factor (1986) #s 24-26
  65. Archie (2015) #s 13-32
  66. Legion Lost (2000) #s 1-2
  67. Archie (2015) #700 (Yes, it got renumbered)
  68. Betty & Veronica (2016) #s 1-2
  69. Justice League of America Annual (1983) #2 
  70. Justice League (2011) #s 22-23
  71. Justice League of America (2013) #s 6-7
  72. Justice League Dark (2011) #s 22-23
  73. Superman (2011) #13
  74. Superboy (2011) #14
  75. Supergirl (2011) #14
  76. Superboy Annual (2012) #1
  77. Superman (2011) #s 14-17
  78. Superboy (2011) #s 15-17
  79. Supergirl (2011) #s 15-17
  80. Superman/Wonder Woman #s 1-7
  81. The New 52: Future’s End #0
  82. Earth 2: World’s End #1
  83. Convergence #0
  84. X-Men: From The Ashes Infinity Comic #5
  85. The New 52: Future’s End #s 1-4
  86. The Immortal Thor #9
  87. Captain America (2023) #8
  88. The Avengers (2023) #12
  89. The Sensational She-Hulk (2023) #s 6-7
  90. Alien: Black, White & Blood #3
  91. Betty & Veronica (2016) #3
  92. Star Wars (2020) #s 34-36
  93. Spider-Man: Shadow of the Goblin #1
  94. Star Wars (2020) #s 37-42
  95. Identity Crisis #1
  96. Superior Spider-Man (2023) #5
  97. Star Wars (2020) #s 43-45
  98. Annihilation 2099 #2
  99. The Amazing Spider-Man (2022) #53
  100. Avengers (2023) #16
  101. Daredevil (2023) #11
  102. The Incredible Hulk: Blood Hunt #1
  103. Union Jack: Blood Hunt #3
  104. Wolverine: Blood Hunt #3
  105. X-Men (2024) #1
  106. X-Men:  Heir of Apocalypse #3
  107. Get Fury #3
  108. Ghost Rider: Final Vengeance #5
  109. Ultimate Comics Ultimates #s 15-16
  110. Howard the Duck (1976) #8
  111. Superman (2006) #s 700-706
  112. The Power Fantasy #1
  113. Superman (2006) #s 707-711,713-714
  114. Superman (1939) #167
  115. Steel (2011) #1
  116. Outsiders (2007) #37
  117. Justice League of America (2006) #55
  118. Batman/Superman Annual (2006) #5
  119. Superboy (2010) #6
  120. Batman/Superman (2003) #75
  121. World’s Finest Comics (1941) #s 298-300
  122. Batman and the Outsiders (1983) #s 9-13
  123. The New Teen Titans (1980) #s 39-44
  124. Tales of the Teen Titans Annual (1980) #3
  125. The Daring New Adventures of Supergirl #s 1-3
  126. Justice League of America (1960) #s 195-197
  127. Ultimates (2024) #2
  128. Symbiote Spider-Man 2099 #5
  129. Justice League of America (1960) #198
  130. Star Wars: Ahsoka #1
  131. Justice League of America (1960) #199
  132. Tales of the Teen Titans (1980) #s 45-48
  133. Absolute Power: Origins #1
  134. The Flash (2023) #11
  135. Tales of the Teen Titans (1980) #s 49-50
  136. Legion of Super-Heroes (1980) #300
  137. Absolute Power: Task Force VII #s 2-3
  138. Green Arrow (2023) #14
  139. Batman: The Brave and The Bold (2023) #15
  140. Detective Comics (1937) #1087
  141. Zatanna: Bringing Down the House #2
  142. Green Lantern (2023) #13
  143. From the DC Vault – Death in the Family: Robin Lives #1
  144. Green Lantern: War Journal #11
  145. Shazam (2023) #13
  146. Catwoman (2018) #67
  147. Dark Knights of Steel: Allwinter #1
  148. Power Girl (2023) #11
  149. Harley Quinn (2021) #42
  150. Tales of the Teen Titans (1980) #s 51-58
  151. The New Teen Titans (1984) #s 1-6
  152. Justice League of America (1960) #s 232-236
  153. X-Men: From the Ashes Infinite Comic #6
  154. Justice League of America (1960) #s 237-238
  155. Batman and the Outsiders Annual (1984) #1
  156. Batman and the Outsiders (1983) #s 14-16
  157. The New Teen Titans (1984) #s 7-8
  158. Batman and the Outsiders (1983) #s 17-19
  159. The New Teen Titans (1984) #s 9-11
  160. Justice League of America (1960) #s 239, 241-244
  161. Infinity Inc. #19
  162. Absolute Power #2
  163. Batman (2016) #151
  164. Shazam (2023) #14
  165. Fantastic Four (2022) #19
  166. The New Teen Titans (1984) #s 12-14
  167. Shade the Changing Man (1990) #s 33-35
  168. The Amazing Spider-Man (2022) #47
  169. The Incredible Hulk (2023) #11
  170. Immortal Thor Annual #1
  171. The Invincible Iron Man (2022) #20
  172. Uncanny X-Men (1963) #s 12-13
  173. The Incredible Hulk (2023) #14
  174. Dracula: Blood Hunt #3
  175. Namor (2024) #1
  176. Phoenix (2024) #1
  177. The Spectacular Spider-Men #5
  178. Amazing Spider-Man: Blood Hunt #3
  179. Blood Hunters #4
  180. Annihilation 2099 #4
  181. Spider-Woman (2023) #9
  182. X-Men: Blood Hunt – Laura Kinney the Wolverine #1
  183. Aliens: What If…? #5
  184. Ultimate X-Men (2024) #5
  185. Daredevil: Woman Without Fear (2024) #1
  186. Star Wars (2020) #48
  187. Scarlet Witch (2024) #2
  188. Kid Venom #1
  189. Batman and the Outsiders (1983) #20
  190. Justice League of America Annual (1983) #3
  191. Count Crowley: Reluctant Midnight Monster Hunter #1
  192. Justice League of America (1960) #s 245-250
  193. Batman and the Outsiders (1983) #s 21-24
  194. The New Teen Titans (1984) #s 15-19
  195. The Omega Men (1983) #34
  196. Batman and the Outsiders (1983) #s 25-27
  197. Star Wars: The High Republic (2022) #s 1-2
  198. Count Crowley: Reluctant Midnight Monster Hunter #s 2-4
  199. BRZRKR #1
  200. Batman and the Outsiders Annual (1984) #2
  201. DC Comics Presents #83
  202. Batman and the Outsiders (1983) #s 28-32
  203. Adventures of the Outsiders (1986) #s 33-38
  204. The Outsiders (1985) #1
  205. Justice League of America (1960) #s 251-261
  206. Legends (1986) #s 1-2
  207. Cosmic Boy #s 1-2
  208. Force Works 2020 #s 1-3
  209. Iron Age 2020 #1
  210. Machine Man 2020 #s 1-2
  211. Machine Man (1984) #s 1-4
  212. Amazing Spider-Man Annual (1964) #20
  213. Iron Man 2020 (1994) #1
  214. Tony Stark, Iron Man #s 1-14
  215. Roxxon Presents: Thor #1
  216. Tony Stark, Iron Man #15
  217. Tony Stark, Iron Man #s 16-19
  218. Iron Man 2020 (2020) #s 1-6
  219. Avengers: Twilight #5
  220. Vengeance of the Moon Knight #7
  221. Wolverine: Blood Hunt #4
  222. Captain America (2023) #11
  223. Annihilation 2099 #4
  224. The Outsiders (1985) #s 2-6
  225. Detective Comics (1937) #566
  226. Batman (1940) #400
  227. The Outsiders (1985) #7
  228. Superman (1938) #s 412-415
  229. Avengers, Inc. #s 1-5
  230. Detective Comics (1937) #526
  231. Batman (1940) #321
  232. Classic X-Men #1
  233. Marvel Zero
  234. Batman (1940) #s 322-324
  235. Trinity (1993) #2
  236. Uncanny X-Men (1963) #s 94-98
  237. Classic X-Men #s 2-7
  238. The Amazing Spider-Man (2022) #54
  239. Black Widow: Venomous #1
  240. Blood Hunt #5
  241. Fantastic Four (2022) #22
  242. Hellverine #3
  243. Immortal Thor #13
  244. Ms. Marvel Annual 2024 #1
  245. Midnight Sons: Blood Hunt #3
  246. Spider-Man: Shadow of the Green Goblin #4
  247. X-Force (2024) #1
  248. X-Men: Heir of Apocalypse #4
  249. Classic X-Men #s 8-9
  250. Absolute Power: Task Force VII #4
  251. Green Lantern (2023) #14
  252. Jenny Sparks (2024) #1
  253. Nightwing (2016) #117
  254. Wonder Woman (2023) #12
  255. Superman (2023) #17
  256. Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #30
  257. Batman (1940) #s 325-326
  258. G.O.D.S. #7
  259. Ultimate Spider-Man (2024) #4
  260. Daredevil (2023) #8
  261. Superior Spider-Man (2023) #6
  262. Blade (2023) #10
  263. Predator: The Last Hunt #3
  264. Sovereign Seven #1
  265. The Impact Winter Special #1
  266. Batman (1940) #s 328-331
  267. X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comic #s 7-8
  268. Dogpool Infinity Comic #1
  269. Catpool Infinity Comic #1
  270. Mousepool Infinity Comic #1
  271. Transformers (2023) #s 1-6
  272. Duke #s 1-5
  273. Titans (2023) #14
  274. Green Lantern: War Journal #12
  275. Batman (1940) #s 332-337
  276. Dogpool Team-Up Infinity Comic #1
  277. Sovereign Seven #2

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Truck Truck Truck

I’ve discovered that, on the occasions where my brain is stressed about something to the degree that it buzzes pretty continuously in the background without ever truly taking over and pushing everything else out to make room, the anxiety machine has developed an unexpected new treat for me. At the end of the night, I’ll get into bed and lie down, light off, ready to sleep, and slip away… only to wake up a couple of hours later in a fog shaped by only the most trivial of things.

Case in point: a few weeks ago, I was feeling a very low-key work stress as I went to sleep, otherwise having enjoyed a day off where I was binge-watching the enjoyably trashy Love Undercover — they’re soccer stars, but in America, where no-one could care less! It’s a perfect formula for a dating show where the unaware women are so very not bothered when they find out the “secret” — and reading Batman comics. I had successfully ignored the worry about a couple of problems I’d have to juggle the next day, and felt both surprised and happy that I wasn’t lying there utterly awake and exhausted… and then it was suddenly 1am and my brain was trying to tell me some very confused story about Jamie The Footballer getting engaged but also I was Batman somehow and there was some kind of cathedral linking the two together in a way I couldn’t even fully comprehend at the time.

Looking back, I’m not entirely sure I properly woke up as much as my brain quasi-surfaced but left enough of itself in a dream that I was unable to tell the two apart. All I know for sure is that I got up to piss, then got back into bed and lay there, worried about what the cathedral meant in the grand scheme of things, and whether or not I should be hanging out on the roof, given that I was Batman, after all.

That wasn’t the first time something like that had happened, and I’m sadly sure it won’t be the last. It’s as if a connection has been screwed up somewhere, and what should be the garbage disposal unit of the my short-term media memory is accidentally dumping everything into the front of my brain at the wrong time. Thankfully, it’s only happened to make me think I was the Dark Knight one time, so far. That’s not something I have any interest in repeating. Just think how bad things would in Gotham City if that were actually the case…

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The SNAFU of it all

A thought that I’ve been returning to again and again over the past few weeks — the past few months, really — is that I’m not sure I know how the internet works anymore. I don’t say that as someone who claims to be an expert on algorithms and spiders indexing everything, nor as someone who’s the right demographic to understand every single trend on every single social media platform available. Fuck, I turn 50 this year; that stuff is really not meant for me anymore.

Nonetheless, I used to believe that I had a good idea how the internet worked. While I was mostly outside of it, I could vaguely understand the culture(s) at play, and was adept enough to track down conversations and in-jokes and memes that I had a column at Wired for years doing that very thing. The mass mind that the internet was back then might not have been something I fully got on a molecular level, and certainly was often something I didn’t even vaguely agreed with, but it was at least something that I felt as if I understood the shape of to a greater or lesser degree.

These days, I feel that’s no longer true. It’s an idea that I’ve become more and more convinced of as I settle into the editorial job at Popverse and look at traffic numbers, or try and understand how to best promote the site or stories therein. I’ve been trying tricks that should work and don’t, and watching things take off for reasons that leave me entirely confused. The distribution systems and conversations I knew from literally decades of doing this professionally have disappeared in a handful of years — since 2020, maybe? 2019, if we’re being generous? — and what’s left is a mystery to me.

On the one hand, this is exciting: it’s a puzzle to be solved, and the kind of mystery box that makes me want to solve it. But on the other is this strange nagging feeling that I already have solved it with an answer that I don’t want to believe is true, and want to be persuaded isn’t the real deal — namely that, due to the many purchases and hollowing-outs of venture capitalists, companies obsessed with maximizing profit over any other outcome, and no small amount of bad faith acting from people who want little else but to be the loudest voices around, the internet… doesn’t actually work anymore. That it’s not that old systems have been replaced by new systems, but that old systems have broken and not been replaced, and what we’re living through is everything else going through the motions in the hope that something will get better sooner rather than later… except, unless there’s a significant change that I can’t see coming anytime soon, that “something better” will never actually arrive.

I want to be wrong, very badly. I want things to turn around in ways that surprise me. It’d be much better to realize that I’m just out of touch, instead of realizing that everything is just… not working anymore. We’ll see.