Bill Mantlo was trying to warn us

Rom spaceknight 58

It's so interesting how sometimes a movie or comic book issue can take on a whole new meaning to you when you re-visit it as an adult as opposed to to when you first read or watched it some where in your teens. I just figured out now that the story line in ROM 58 which revolved around a mutagenic dire wraith taint introduced to the Earth's ecosystem was basically just an allegory for the harmful short term and long term impact of pollution from human activity. This is made even more obvious by the fact that actual man made pollution in the form of run off from a coal mine played a direct part in the previous two issues that took place in Beaver Falls Canada with guest appearances by Alpha Flight.

Soylent Green

Kinda makes you wonder if Bill Mantlo was a fan of dystopian sci-fi movies especially with issues like environmental collapse usually being such a central theme? I know I am. I love em in spite of being terrified by them at the same time. Now if you're tired of my politics becoming part of yet another blog posting you know I don't give a shit right?

Children of Men

I mean if you're one of these evangelicals that are still devoted to trump ask yourself if Jesus would be a trump supporter? Or for those of you who are Bill Mantlo fans ask yourself if he was still healthy today and in complete control of his mental faculties would he have voted for trump? And how do you think he would feel about his presidency thus far? And if that answer isn't as immediately obvious to you as it is to me then congratulations you win the biggest dumb ass in the universe award.

Dredd

The typical aspects of a dystopian future as told in most science fiction are environmental collapse, dwindling natural resources, out of control corporate corruption, massive class and gender inequality, over population, scarce natural resources, authoritarian governments and urban decay. Are we moving in that direction or just going through a really really rough patch on the road to an eventual brighter future?

I can't say for sure but if today we're seeing the early signs of a dystopian future right out of the movies all I ask is that I'm not around to see that shit go down. I'd rather check out while the world is still in half way decent shape.

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September 5th Update: Look what I found today, on farcebook no less. This is some damn good professional quality fan art (artist unknown) of Nova and ROM along with the spackenights of Galador taking on two villains who have proving to be almost as dangerous to planet Earth as donald trump and scott pruitt.

September 7th Update: Damn, just heard the sad news about Bert Reynolds passing away. I don't like this growing list of dead celebrities that I grew up with especially with 2018 still having almost a few more months to go. Boogie Nights, hands down one of the best movies ever made.

The greatest of the spaceknights vs nobody's favorite superhero and how comics tackle racism

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This guy I used to know on social media who was both a ROM and Captain Atom fan used to call Captain Atom "Nobody's favorite superhero". Can't seem to recall what exactly he meant by that but unfortunately he's disappeared off the grid and now hasn't been seen for years now so I guess I won't ever get a chance to ask him again. Those of you who saw my last posting will no doubt recognize the source material for this art. I had some down time recently so for the Hell of it I decided to print out the sketch and try out adding some color to it. Can't imagine what kind of scenario would have these two heroes unleashing holly Hell on each other like this but it's not like we've never seen this sort of thing before right? But it's never the less interesting and creative and it's just the sort of fan art I like to post here.

Allow me to pivot here. I saw Blackkkklansman on it's opening weekend and I loved it and I hope some of you will see it while it's still in theaters. I thought the movie did a great job of telling a fascinating story based on a real life situation back in the 70s while drawing a straight line to today's troubles in race relations and political partisanship. There was also a lot of great humor but aside from all that I thought it was very interesting and unexpected with how it dealt with Adam Driver's character. For some people (some "very fine" people I'm sure) this Spike Lee joint might have been a bit too heavy handed or even over the top. A minor issue at best, this was never the less a great film on many levels with much contemporary relevance.

Fantastic Four 278 (1985)

Black Panther Civil War TPB 2007

Speaking of the history of taking on racism in artistic forums I had some thoughts about the world of comics. It's interesting when I look at comics of the 80s and how the writers seemed to take on racism in it's more blatant forms. But clearly in more recent years writers have become much more sophisticated with putting a spot light on the more subtle forms of racism. I think that's very commendable, especially during times like this with all the dog whistles, assault on the truth and pretenses to national security to what are largely policies and statements motivated by this culture war of race politics.