#alex nadler

[justplainwhump]

Sidewalk

After sabotaging an interrogation, Tyler returns home.

[Masterpost]

Content - No warnings. Just delightful angst. This is set in the BBU. Very short one.

Tyler's hands were shaking, the key to his building slipping through his fingers and rattling on the concrete ground. "Fuck," he whispered, as he sank to his knees to pick it up.

He was not referring to the key.

He had killed someone today. The pet, 242, might live, but Susy was gone.

He had betrayed his employer.

He had tortured an innocent woman.

He had captured hours of it on tape.

He had destroyed his own life, too.

It was over, inevitably. He'd bought some days, at most. Tara would never be safe. He wouldn't, either. There were storys, about what happened to handlers defying the company. Nobody had lived to talk about it. Maintenance pets, some whispered. If they were lucky.

He didn't think he'd be.

The sides of the key scratched into his palm. He didn't get back up. Just stayed cowering on the empty sidewalk in front of his house for another second or two. Closed his eyes. Smelled the rain drying on concrete, the frying oil from the take out place next door, the exhausts of the cars passing behind him. His fingertips ran over the rough stone wall.

Tara was inside. Waiting for him, probably. Tara, whom he had saved today, at the cost of her friend, and whose trust he had completely and utterly ruined.

He'd have to tell her. He'd have to step through this door, his own door, and tell to his best friend what he'd done. What he was. And that she had to run.

Time was an issue, and still some part of him refused to act. Clung to the childish hope that if he just didn't move, time would stop with him, long enough for him to figure it all ou-

A car passed by, too close, through a puddle by the curb, and Tyler stumbled back to his feet as cold water sloshed over him.

Time didn't stop.

Of course it didn't.

It cost all of his effort to release his grip around the key, to put it into the lock, turn it, and to step inside his apartment.

There was light on in the kitchen, and through the open door he could catch a glimpse of Tara's ginger hair.

She wasn't alone. There was someone with her, a slim figure in an oversized black hoodie, that was so out of place on them that even after they turned around, Tyler's mind refused to make sense of it.

They smiled, and it turned real.

"Hi, Tyler," Alex Nadler said.

#bbu #tyler parker #angst #alex nadler

[minnesotafollower]

Biden Administration Announces Proposed Restrictions on Asylum Applications

On February 21, the Biden Administration announced a proposed rule that would  require rapid deportation of an immigrant at the U.S. border who had failed to request protection from another country while en route to the U.S. or who had not previously notified the U.S. via a mobile app of their plan to seek asylum in the U.S. or who had applied for the new U.S. humanitarian parole programs for…

View On WordPress

#American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) #asylum #Cuba #DHS Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas #Federation for American Immigration Reform #Haiti #Immigrant Defenders Law Center #Jane Bentrott #Justice Action Center’s #Krish O’Mara Vignarajah #Lee Gelernt #Lindsay Toczylowski #Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service #Nicaragua #President Joe Biden #Title 42 #U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland #U.S. Representative Jerrold Nadler #U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal #U.S. Senator Alex Padilla #U.S. Senator Bob Menendez #U.S. Senator Cory Booker #U.S. Senator Ray Luján #Venezuela

[simptasia]

ages of LOST characters when we first meet them vs the ages of the actors when they first started playing them. reminder that the starting point of LOST is september 22nd 2004. if a character’s age seems one less than sounds right to you its because their birthday is coming up. if a character is missing from this it’s because we don’t know their age in canon (looking at you, desmond)

jack shephard: 34 matthew fox: 38

kate austen: 27 evangeline lilly: 25

hugo “hurley” reyes: 25 jorge garcia: 31

james “sawyer” ford: 35 josh holloway: 35

sawyer says he’s 35. but lostpedia only has sawyer’s birthyear, 1968, making him 36. however an easy explanation for this is that sawyer has a birthday coming up in the post september to december range (like many other characters here) thus making the birthyear and what sawyer said still right

john locke: 48 terry o’quinn: 52

sayid jarrah: 36 naveen andrews: 35

jin-soo kwon: 29 daniel dae kim: 36

sun-hwa kwon: 24 yunjin kim: 31

claire littleton: 21 emilie de ravin: 23

charlie pace: 27 dominic monaghan: 27

okay so an odd thing happened here. we don’t actually know charlie’s age in canon, except that based on a statement from liam that he’s absolutely less than 30. and basically what happened is there was big debate on lostpedia, the general gist being he’s 25 to 28, until everybody just gave up and they slapped dom’s birthday on charlie’s page. and it’s still there to this day

walt lloyd: 10 malcolm david kelley: 12

walt’s actor was gonna age outta the role anyways due to the nature of lost’s timeline but their first mistake was casting a 12 year old. like, hello, puberty?

shannon rutherford: 20 maggie grace: 21

boone carlyle: 23 ian somerhalder: 26

danielle rousseau: 44 mira furlan: 49

ethan rom: 27 william mapother: 39

the consequences of season 5 are starting to hit

bernard nadler: 56 or 57 sam anderson: 58

ana lucia cortez: 29 michelle rodriguez: 27

eko tunde: 35 adewale akinnuoye-agbaje: 38

alexandra “alex” rousseau/linus: 16 tania raymonde: 17

benjamin “ben” linus: 39 michael emerson: 51

this isn’t even due to later timeline decisions, they just decided to do this

miles straume: 27 ken leung: 38

daniel faraday: 26 jeremy davies: 39

charlotte lewis: 33 rebecca mader: 31

and theeere’s the season 5 whammy. for those who don’t know (you must be new to my blog) dan and miles ages differ so much from their actors because when our guys are in 1977, it suited the story and characters better for miles to be a baby and dan to be an embryo (and char to be 6) at the same time. the writers were set on 1977 being the year everybody got stuck in and that’s how we get daniel faraday being an oxford professor at fucking 18

it’s something that gets funnier and sadder the longer you think about it

anyways. thank you for your time!

#i dunno when exactly lost started filming so the actor's ages are close enoughs #i say this like any of you care that much #anyways i just think lists are neat #this took more effort that it looks. i had to look up every actor's birthdays and i had my calculator open the whole time #this took forever and my computer hated doing it #7 years isn't much of an age difference but because dan's starts with a 2 and char's starts with a 3 it looks like a much bigger gap #miles would jokingly call char a cougar

[medium-observation]

JULY RELEASE

Funny Girl - First Broadway Revival

April 26, 2023 - Medium Observation

Video

Cast:

Julie Benko (alt Fanny Brice), Ramin Karimloo (Nick Arnstein), Tovah Feldshuh (Mrs. Brice), Jared Grimes (Eddie Ryan), Paolo Montalban (Florenz Ziegfeld), Leslie Blake Walker (u/s Emma/Mrs. Nadler), Debra Cardona (Mrs. Meeker), Anne L. Nathan (Mrs. Strakosh), Michael Mastro (Tom Keeney/Actor), Kaitlyn Frank (s/w Ensemble)

Notes:

Excellent video of this show from the orchestra. Some heads are seen but not obstructing anything, except on the right side of the screen when they are extremely stage left. Colors are absolutely beautiful. Some washout but it's very minimal. Overall a near perfect capture.

NFT Date: January 1, 2024

Screenshots: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjABwVP

Video is $20

Beetlejuice - Broadway Remount

December 14, 2022 - Medium Observation

Video

Cast:

Alex Brightman (Beetlejuice), Dana Steingold (u/s Lydia Deetz), Kerry Butler (Barbara Maitland), David Josefsberg (Adam Maitland), Adam Dannheisser (Charles Deetz), Natalie Charle Ellis (u/s Delia Deetz), Michelle Aravena (Miss Argentina), Kelvin Moon Loh (Otho), Danny Rutigliano (Maxie Dean), Zonya Love (Maxine Dean/Juno), Brooke Leigh Engen (u/s Girl Scout)

Notes:

Very nice video of Dana from the left orchestra. The video is on a dutch angle but it doesn't take too much away from the video. There is a loud obnoxious drunk lady behind me who wouldn't stop screaming at the actors during the show. Alex told her to shush at the puppet show. She stopped in Act 2 for the most part. Overall a really nice video of this show nearing its end.

NFT Date: January 1, 2024

Screenshots: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjAjvkF

Video is $18

Videos can be purchased through me at [email protected]

#mediumobservation #beetlejuice the musical #alex brightman #funny girl #musical bootlegs #julie benko #bjtm #beetlejuice

[legendsofamultishipper]

LOST Characters

Bold your favorites

Strike through your least favorites

Jack Shephard

Kate Austen

Hugo "Hurley" Reyes

John Locke

Jin-Soo Kwon

Sun-Hwa Kwon

Charlie Pace

Claire Littleton

James "Sawyer" Ford

Juliet Burke

Sayid Jarrah

Desmond Hume

Penelope "Penny" Widmore

Frank Lapidus

Daniel Faraday

Charlotte Lewis

Miles Straume

Richard Alpert

Benjamin Linus

Charles Widmore

Danielle Rousseau

Alex Rousseau

Rose Nadler

Bernard Nadler

Shannon Rutherford

Boone Carlyle

Ana Lucia Cortez

Elizabeth "Libby" Smith

Mr. Eko

Smoke Monster

Vincent the dog

Michael Dawson

Walt Lloyd

Ilana Verdansky

Tom Friendly

Pierre Chang

Naomi Dorrit

Ethan Rom

Phil

Eloise "Ellie" Hawking

Mikhail Bakunin

Leslie Arzt

Martin Keamy

Jacob

Anthony Cooper

Neil "Frogurt"

George Minkowski

Nikki & Paulo

Man in Black

(I included as many characters as I could think of. Feel free to add anyone else you want.)

#lost #lost tv show #lost abc #james ford #hugo reyes #juliet burke #desmond hume #jin soo kwon #sun hwa kwon #john locke #daniel faraday #claire littleton

[fantomcomics]

What’s Out This Week? 7/26

Who do we talk to to get July to stop going by SO FAST??

Alice Never After #1(of 5) - Dan Panosian & Giorgio Spalletta

Alice finally got her wish. Wonderland has become her new home, but with her abuser's avatar with the uncanny grin turning the mad residents of a moonstruck world against her, she's clawing for a little rationality amongst the chaos. As Alice's sister Edith and her childhood friend Earl fight for a way to bring her back, Alice has to contend with whether or not her torment is due to her father, herself, or maybe a curious combination of both...

BRZRKR: Poetry Of Madness #1 -  Keanu Reeves & Steve Skroce 

A sea of gore and devastation awaits as B, through a fateful chance encounter, safeguards the advanced and ancient realm of Atlantis as its unstoppable protector. But a sickly king serves as a symbol for the rot inside, as the security and bliss created through B's violence is shallow... The cracks created by a secret cult might spell a monstrous end for the legendary city, one beyond even B's ability to save.

The Children Of The Comet #1 (of 5) - Damian Connelly & Gabriel Kiko

A new series set in the world of You Promised Me Darkness and Follow Me Into The Darkness! Ten years after the events of Follow, Sage and the children of the comet live prosperously in New Kolosimo. But one day before the birthday of Miracle, the daughter of Sage and Daversa, new threats appear and the children of the comet must go into action again. Satanists, psychedelic dimensions, chihuahuas that shoot laser beams from their eyes, a deadly villain who wakes up after many years of being asleep and many other oddities. Welcome back to Kolosimo, where everything is weird.

Eight Billion Genies Deluxe Edition HC Vol 1 -  Charles Soule & Ryan Browne

If you had one wish...what would you wish for? What if everyone else on the planet had one wish too? That's EIGHT BILLION GENIES. Eight seconds after magical genies grant every person on earth one wish, the world is transformed forever...and that's just the beginning!

Immortal Ascension #1 (of 2) - David Chisa & Kristian Rossi

What if an Elektra type of character was thrown in an arcade game fighting style adventure? She'd be the GodKiller! Gear up for an epic tale of redemption and combat! Meet Rose, once known as the GodKiller, a fierce warrior who's seen it all - from brutal beatdowns to painful punishments. Now seeking peace and solitude, she's about to face her biggest challenge yet! As a master of the art of combat, she'll need to level up and rescue her students from the monstrous Hell Ghouls gang.  

The Jewish Deli: An Illustrated Guide To The Chosen Food HC -  Ben Nadler

A delightful celebration of Jewish delicatessens in an accessible comics format, full of history and humor, and guaranteed to make you hungry. 

Beloved culinary and cultural institutions, Jewish delis are wonderlands of amazing flavors and great food-bright, buttery, briny, sweet, fatty, salty, smoky. . .In The Jewish Deli, comics artist and deli aficionado Ben Nadler takes a deliciously entertaining deep dive into the history and culture of this food and the places that serve it up to us across the counter. 

A visual treat, this accessible and informative nonfiction graphic novel delivers stories of tradition and innovation, celebrations of iconic menu staples, flavor profiles, food preparations, ordering advice, spotlights on legendary and up-and-coming delis, and much more.

My Mate Is A Feline Gentleman GN -  Arata Asanae

When Toushirou is hired as a servant for beastman diplomat Alex, he fears the very worst. As an omega, he's gotten used to being treated as a mere plaything, and he prepares to once again "serve" his feline master. But to his surprise, Alex is appalled by the treatment of omegas in Japan and treats him with a kindness he's never experienced before. Little by little, Toushirou's feelings begin to change...

Primus 7 GN Vol 1 -  Nic Macari

Seven and Silva Ajamu witness the deaths of their father and grandfather by the hands of Arthur Grove. They are saved by Viktor Espinoza, a former soldier, who raises them as his own. Viktor must teach the boys how to harness their power before it's too late. Meanwhile, Grove has a dark energy brewing inside him that can alter the balance of Primordia as we know it. Can the two brothers work together and unlock their full potential?

Purr Evil #1 (of 6) -  Mirka Andolfo & Laura Braga

THERE IS NO ESCAPING THE MEWING EVIL... Rita loves her daughter Deb, but a dark evil from her past threatens the lives of anyone who gets too close to it. Can the bond between two women overcome a life built on blood and lies? And what secret is lurking in the Morando family's apartment?

PURR EVIL is a stand-out story about the relationship between a mother who gave everything for her daughter and a daughter who needs to figure out her role in a world that she's about to doom!

Radiant Pink TP Vol 1 - Meghan Camarena, Melissa Flores & Emma Kubert

When video game streamer and secret superhero Eva is invited to the biggest charity stream event of the year, she sees her chance to use her platform for good. But when a surprise attack sends her hurtling across dimensions, Eva will have to rely on everything she has to make it home in one piece.

Rebel Grrrls #1 - Danny Harrell & Robert Ahmad

Cursed with the power to resurrect the dead through music, three girls from rural Alabama set out to tour dive bars, basements and county fairs throughout the south. If making it as an all-girl punk band wasn't difficult enough, these cursed souls are pursued by a ghoul, disguised as a record executive, who has been tasked with using them to resurrect enough of the dead to overthrow the living. Despite the forces of hell patiently awaiting its time to rise, these riot grrrls are intent to prove that they're no sellouts, and that they can make their mark on their own. Will it be revolution, girl style... or Armageddon?

Rivers Of London: Here Be Dragons #1 (of 4) -  James Swallow & Jose Maria Beroy A dangerous monster is at large above the streets of London. And its name... Wyvern! After a Met Police helicopter on night patrol is attacked by an unidentified aerial phenomena, the Met's only sanctioned wizard, Peter Grant, and his mentor, Thomas Nightingale, are called in to investigate. Peter and Nightingale find themselves drawn into a battle between two groups of hunters - one human, and one fae- as they uncover a legacy of events that extend back to the 1960s. To save the skies of the city, Peter must face the enraged beast - but can he end things peacefully... or will he be forced to destroy the last wyvern?

Seraph Of The End: Guren Ichinose, Catastrophe At Sixteen GN Vol 1 - Yo Asami & Takaya Kagami

Prequel to the hit manga series, Seraph of the End! Detailing the events before the apocalypse, 15 year old Guren Ichinose enrolls at Daiichi Shibuya High, a magical training school. Witness his trials as he must hide his true strength even as he is trampled on at a school for the insufferably privileged.

Social Fiction GN - Chantal Montellier & Geoffrey Brock

An anonymous official chides a man under surveillance for stepping out of view of a security camera; visitors to an underground mall are forced to form a new society when a nuclear strike may (or may not) have left them as the sole survivors on Earth; newlyweds living in an authoritarian New York City attempt to navigate the insidious hurdles of being permitted to have a child; and a Puerto Rican boxer discovers that segregation continues in America long after death. In this collection of three novellas, Wonder City, Shelter, and 1996, published together in English for the first time, Chantal Montellier's blend of dark humor, gripping storytelling, and consistent focus on the perils of totalitarianism, shows her to be a master of both comics and science fiction.

Soichi HC -  Junji Ito

Soichi, the unhinged second son of the Tsujii family, chews nails and makes them clatter and clack as he spouts horrific curses to bring about the most bizarre happenings. Whether it's summer holidays or a birthday party, Soichi can turn any occasion into a nightmare in a heartbeat. What is the terrible secret of his origin? Meanwhile, tormented by his little brother's never-ending pranks, older brother Koichi has a soundproof room built. But why does it have a series of four doors? And then there's the strange phenomenon surrounding the handmade casket their grandfather left behind. What on earth-or hell-has the family seen there? Ten tales that celebrate the sinister and hilarious world of Junji Ito's favorite antihero, Soichi!

Stars In Their Eyes GN -  Jessica Walton & Aska

Maisie is on her way to Fancon! She's looking forward to meeting her idol, Kara Bufano, the action hero from her favorite TV show, who has a lower-leg amputation, just like Maisie. But when Maisie and her mom arrive at the convention center, she is stopped in her tracks by Ollie, a cute volunteer working the show. They are kind, charming, and geek out about nerd culture just as much as Maisie does. And as the day wears on, Maisie notices feelings for Ollie that she's never had before. Is this what it feels like to fall in love? Perfect for fans of Heartstopper and Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me, this graphic novel debut is a fresh, one-of-a-kind story that celebrates the excitement of meeting someone special for the first time.

Tokidoki: The Art Of Simone Legno HC -  Simone Legno & Tokidoki

tokidoki, which translates to "sometimes" in Japanese, is an internationally-recognized and iconic lifestyle brand based on the vision of Italian artist Simone Legno and his partners, serial entrepreneurs Pooneh Mohajer and Ivan Arnold. Since debuting in 2005, tokidoki has amassed a cult-like following for its larger-than-life characters and emerged as a sought-after global lifestyle brand. tokidoki offers an extensive range of products which include apparel, handbags, cosmetics, accessories, toys and more.  Combining Legno's unique talent and creativity with Mohajer's business acumen, tokidoki has grown exponentially. As an innovative company, tokidoki is known not only for its eye-popping aesthetic and criminally cute characters but also its megawatt partnerships.

The Way Of The Househusband: The Gangster’s Guide To Housekeeping GN - Kousuke Oono, Laurie Ulster & Victoria Rosenthal

Everyone, from busy office workers and aspiring homemakers to the fiercest members of the yakuza, can gain important life skills from The Way of the Househusband: The Gangster's Guide to Housekeeping! Learn the housekeeping secrets of the legendary gangster, Tatsu, with this practical and humorous book inspired by the popular manga series The Way of the Househusband. This detailed guide includes cleaning tricks to leave your home sparkling, secrets for finding cutthroat deals, schemes for mastering your territory, keys to caring for your gang, and much more. Within these pages you will also find 25 delicious recipes that will satisfy any voracious gangster. Follow these tips and apply the determination of the Immortal Dragon to cooking, cleaning, shopping, and crafting to discover the path to housekeeping success!

XOGenasys GN Vol 1 - Tre Mcintosh & Nikolas Draper-Ivey

The future has grown into a decadent, overcrowded gang-ridden cesspool. If you're not living uptown, you might as well be dead. Such is the case of Darius Smith, an artistic youth living in the hood, doing his best to avoid trouble and live life. Unfortunately, Darius has a hidden talent-he's an explosive fighter! This makes him the target of many gangs and pits him in many brawls, landing him in the sight of the honorable Timothy Mustafa, a powerful prince. XOGenaSYS is a successful gladiator sport fought with powered exoskeletons, and as the owner of one of the most successful teams in the country, Mustafa wants Darius to become his newest fighter. Can Darius become the next champion? Or will he fall like so many before him?

Whatcha snagging this week, Fantom Fam?

#What's Out This Week? #WOTW #comic #comics #comic book #comic books #manga #Alice Never After #BRZRKR: Poetry Of Madness #The Children Of The Comet #Eight Billion Genies #Immortal Ascension #The Jewish Deli: An Illustrated Guide To The Chosen Food #My Mate Is A Feline Gentleman #Primus 7 #Purr Evil #Radiant Pink #Rebel Grrrls #Rivers Of London #Seraph Of The End #Social Fiction #Soichi #Stars In Their Eyes #Tokidoki #The Way Of The Househusband #XOGenasys

[kilopdocs]

Virginia governor race dominate ad wars

Ron DeSantis, a rising conservative star frequently mentioned as a top alternative to Donald Trump in the 2024 GOP presidential contest. WASHINGTON (AP) - Tuesday's primary elections feature two top Florida Democrats squaring off for the chance to face Republican Gov. Charlie Neibergall/AP Show More Show Less Democrats are uncertain about President Joe Biden's political future and many Republicans avoid taking on former President Donald Trump. But this year, the traffic at the fair was noticeably light. Potential White House hopefuls from both parties often swing by Iowa's legendary state fair during a midterm election year to connect with voters who could sway the nomination process. Frank Franklin II Show More Show Less 9 of9 Former Vice President Mike Pence speaks to the media during a visit to the Iowa State Fair, Friday, Aug. Carolyn Maloney which will be held on Tuesday, Aug. Nadler is running in New York's 12th Congressional District Democratic primary against Attorney Suraj Patel and Rep. Jerry Nadler speaks at the NY-12 Candidate Forum Wednesday, Aug. Mary Altaffer/AP Show More Show Less 8 of9 FILE - Rep. Jerry Nadler in New York's 12th Congressional District Democratic primary. Maloney is running against attorney Suraj Patel and Rep. Carolyn Maloney, left, with her daughter Virginia talks to reporters after casting her vote in the Democratic primary election, Aug. Sue Ogrocki/AP Show More Show Less 7 of9 FILE - Rep. Senate seat, in Lawton, Okla., on June 6, 2014. Shannon gestures during a Republican candidate forum for the open U.S. Alex Brandon/AP Show More Show Less 6 of9 FILE - State Rep. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill on Sept. Lynne Sladky/AP Show More Show Less 5 of9 FILE - Rep. Crist was endorsed by the Florida Education Association (FEA) and teachers unions from across Florida in his campaign for governor of Florida. Charlie Crist, D-Fla., second from right, talks with a supporter outside of the United Teachers of Dade offices, May 31, 2022, in Miami Springs, Fla. Wilfredo Lee/AP Show More Show Less 4 of9 FILE - Rep. John Raoux/AP Show More Show Less 3 of9 FILE - Florida Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services Nikki Fried speaks during an interview, April 21, 2022, at the Phillip & Patricia Frost Museum of Science in Miami. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Feb. Lynne Sladky/AP Show More Show Less 2 of9 FILE - Sen. 15, 2022, at the Borinquen Medical Center in Miami. Val Demings, D-Fla., participates in a roundtable discussion about Congress passing the inflation bill and the high cost of prescription drugs, Aug.

#Virginia governor race dominate ad wars

[randomfandom815]

Defending the women of LOST/Sexism in LOST

People say they don’t like Kate Austen because she’s “annoying” “can’t choose between Jack and Sawyer” “always wants to join every single mission”. Kate has way bigger things to worry about than sorting out her romantic feelings. Yes, she is developing feelings for both Jack and Sawyer, but she doesn’t have time to figure them out while trying to survive on the island. And the fact that people don’t like her because of the whole “I’m coming with you” thing is a little ridiculous, because they’re hating Kate for wanting to protect her friends and do whatever she can to help. You know who else does that? Jack. But plenty of people love him for those very same reasons. Yeah, a lot of Kate’s character was centered around the love triangle, but that isn’t the character’s fault, it the writers’s.

Then there’s Claire Littleton. People always complain about her “my baby!” thing, but... she only actually says that a few times, AND, if your child was taken from you or you thought your child was going to be hurt, wouldn't you be worried out of your mind? Wouldn’t you want to do anything to help them? People also criticize Claire for her entire Season 6 arc. She was alone, on the island, thinking everyone had abandoned her, with only the MIB for company. She was also tortured by the temple Others, who she thought had taken her child. Claire was a single mother who just wanted to keep her son safe, give her a break. 

Sun-Hwa Kwon is a character who actually doesn’t receive that much hate, but there is still the fact that people don’t like her because she left Ji Yeon to go back to the island for Jin. Here’s the thing: Sun had no way of knowing what was would happen on the island. She had no way of knowing that Jin had time traveled to the past, and she had no way of knowing what would happen with the MIB/Locke. She thought that she would be able to go to the island, bring Jin and the others back, and the two of them would reunite with Ji Yeon. And then in the submarine incident, Sun didn't want Jin to stay. She wanted him to live and take care of Ji Yeon. It was Jin who made the decision to die with her, not Sun.

Shannon Rutherford is a very unlikable character. Even I don’t enjoy her character, or Boone, and that is a view shared by many other people in the fandom. Many people call her selfish, spoiled, and just plain rude. And she was all of those things, but that wasn’t her entire character. Remember, they had all just been through a plane crash, landed on an island with no chance of rescue. Also, friendly reminder that she was only 20 years old. She was scared, and her way of coping with that was to try to do something normal. Let’s not forget, in Pilot, Part 2, she volunteered to go on the mission to fix the transceiver. She was constantly feeling useless, and it didn’t help that other characters, especially Boone, were constantly putting her down and mocking her. When she started to see Walt, she genuinely made an attempt to help him, even though she wasn’t sure if he was even there. Her death was untimely, and I wished we had gotten to see her grow more as a person. Also, her death was used for shock value and to further Sayid’s character development.

And now, one of the most hated characters of LOST, Ana Lucia Cortez. Now, while the characters I mentioned above were shit on and criticized, Ana Lucia was absolutely hated by the fandom. People hated her attitude, her toughness, her dislike of most of the people around her, and the fact that she killed Shannon (who, by the way, was just as disliked by many Ana Lucia haters). You know who else has a similar attitude? Who has that same toughness and dislike of people? Who else killed someone? That would be Sawyer, a fan-favorite, white male character who is beloved by the fandom. Now, for the last point, what I am comparing here is Ana Lucia killing Shannon to Sawyer killing the man he thought was Frank Sawyer in Australia, right before flight 815. Ana Lucia killed Shannon because she was trying to protect the people she was leading (including Sawyer!) from who she thought was the Others, and killing Shannon was an accident. Sawyer killed the man completely on purpose and out of revenge. Oh, and it wasn’t even the right person. Yes, I am aware of the man Ana killed long before flight 815 out of revenge, but if we can take her very small amount of character development, in which she refused to kill Henry Gale, a known Other at that point. Whereas Sawyer was still willing to kill a bunch of people in Season 6, the end of his character arc. And yet, Sawyer is still in most people’s top five characters lists (just to be clear, I do not hate Sawyer at all, and this is not anti Sawyer but pro Ana Lucia). You may argue that people love Sawyer because of his character development, which I do agree with. However, Ana Lucia was never given the chance to have Sawyer-like character development because she was killed off in the same season that she was introduced in. She wasn’t even allowed to be in the church in the flash-sideways, and she didn’t get to “move on.” Ana Lucia deserved way better than the death for shock value that she got.

Next up on the list is Juliet Burke. She, like Sun, also isn’t the target of a lot of hate, but there are still things that need defending. The first thing is, of course, her sudden change of mind when it came to detonating the hydrogen bomb in Season 5. Yes, it was selfish of her to endanger everyone on the island just because of the way Sawyer looked at Kate. But if the plan did actually work, which she thought it would, that meant she would lose everything she had gained over the past few years, including Sawyer. Juliet is incredibly kind and feminine while also being badass at the same time, which is amazing because you don’t usually see those two traits coinciding (usually a badass character isn’t very feminine and a “traditionally feminine” character isn’t a good fighter). As for all of her motives in Season 3, Juliet was trapped on the island for three years. All she wanted to do was leave and go home to her sister. Yes, she manipulated Sun, but right after that, she made things right by helping Jack make a plan to stop the Others. Her death was heroic, and I’m glad she was finally able to be happy in the flash-sideways. (I am declining to mention her whole relationship with Goodwin and all the drama with Ben, although I might dive into that in another post). 

Now, the character Rose Nadler has almost nothing that needs to be defended. She is a constant wise voice of reason who isn’t concerned with the drama of the rest of the survivors. Her relationship with her husband Bernard is very sweet, but she doesn’t let that stop her from doing the smart thing (like stopping his SOS sign idea). Not only that, but Rose has one of the best (and most meta) lines on the show: “If you say live together, die alone to me, Jack, I’m going to punch you in the face.”

Another character who doesn't need much defending is Charlotte Lewis, but not for the same reason as Rose. Charlotte was done dirty by the writers. Of the science team, she is the least fleshed out and explored. She had a single flashback and a little bit of exposition information from Ben, but that’s pretty much it. Every significant thing she did was for the sake of other characters. She had a fake-out death so Ben would reveal that he had a spy on the boat. She was taken to the Barracks so that members of Jack’s group would have a reason to go there. Her going to the Barracks was also an excuse to get Miles and Kate there. And she only died/was dying for shock value, to up the stakes of the time flashes, to provide more questions to the characters and the audience, and to further Daniel’s character development. In the flash-sideways, all she did was go on a date with Sawyer and further his character development. She didn't get to go to the church and move on. Daniel and Miles, the other members of her team, on the other hands were given compelling backstories and centric episodes.

Penelope Widmore is similar to Charlotte in that there isn’t much to defend because she doesn’t do much that affects the plot. Nearly everything she does is about Desmond, and the writers barely even gave her a personality. I’m sure Penny was an actually interesting person, if they had bothered her to give her any storyline that didn't involve her love interest.

Danielle Rousseau is a character that kind of slides in and out of the story as needed. Now, Danielle isn’t the subject of a lot of criticism just because she isn’t very focused on, but from what I have seen, here’s what I have to say: Danielle was alone on the island for sixteen years. And for sixteen years, she had to live with the knowledge that she was forced to kill the man she loved and her team. Not to mention the fact that her daughter, Alex, was taken away from her when she was just a week old. Can you blame Danielle for being paranoid? Her death was not a fair end to the character, and it was only used to kill off Danielle quickly and provide shock value.

Her daughter, Alex Rousseau, is similar to Charlotte and Penny in that she doesn’t need to be defended because everything she does is to affect other characters. In this case, those characters are Ben and Danielle (especially Ben in the later seasons). Danielle’s entire character is centered around the fact that she lost Alex and has been searching for her, and Ben’s motivations after Season 4 are largely motivated by Alex’s death. She herself doesn’t have much of a character arc, and her death was only to provide shock value and further Ben’s character development.

Another character that falls into the category of not having much to defend because every action is for someone else is Libby Smith. Once the tailies and the main survivors joined together, she was almost immediately shoved in a relationship with Hurley. The only things we knew about her backstory were that her husband died, she was a clinical psychologist, she was in the same mental hospital as Hurley, and she gave Desmond a boat. That’s it. She didn’t have a centric episode, and she only appeared in other people’s flashbacks. Her death was only to provide shock value and further Hurley’s character development, as well to show that Michael betrayed the survivors. 

Notice how many of these women died for shock value and/or to further a man’s character development? Notice how many of these women are disliked for traits that other characters are loved for? Notice how many of them barely exist as their own character without a man? I love LOST, I really do, but their treatment of female characters needed a lot of improvement.

#lost #lost tv show #abc lost #lost tv series #fandom sexism #sexism in fandom #kate austen #claire littleton #sun-hwa kwon #shannon rutherford #ana lucia cortez #juliet burke #rose nadler #charlotte lewis #penelope widmore #penny widmore #danielle rousseau #alex rousseau #libby smith

[justplainwhump]

How it ends

[Way over his head | Masterpost]

Tyler acts.

Follows right after [Goodbye]. This is a short one, but the next might take long to write, and I want to prove that I'm working on it!

Content: attempted abduction, a little stabbing, betrayal, implied beating. The whole story is set in the BBU, but no pet whump is present in this piece.

~

Tyler led Tara onto the nightly street, out of the apartment building that had been their home for years. He felt her heart throb against his chest, its accelerated beat matching his own panic.

He didn't want this. He never had. He'd just failed to do anything about it. This was on him, all of it was, and now it was up to him to get her out of this.

The man in front of them fell into a jog towards the van, ready to pull open the door for her. Alex was behind them, about to step outside as well.

Tyler loosened his hold of Tara, praying to a God he didn't even believe in. If she'd understood her message, she'd-

"Goodbye," Tara mumbled. A wave of relief washed over him. She'd gotten it. She'd understood what his reckless, insanely dumb plan was.

His fingers wrapped around the handle of the knife he'd nicked from the kitchen.

"Wha-", was all that Alex could yell, as Tara darted to the side, and Tyler spun around to face them.

Tyler brought forward the knife, their stupid dull kitchen knife that he should've sharpened ages ago, and Alex' eyes widened as they understood.

Their reflexes were incredible. They spun aside, motion stopped abruptly by the door in their back.

They couldn't dodge far enough.

The knife tore through fabric and skin and flesh. He drove it deep into Alex' stomach, before Alex' hand wrapped around Tyler's and their other arm somehow slammed against Tyler's neck, sending him stumbling back.

"Don't stare," Alex yelled at someone behind him. "I've got this! Get her!"

Tyler heard the van speed off with screeching tires. Too late, he thought. Hoped. Tara was fast, she was clever, resourceful. She'd get away. She had to.

Alex staggered towards him, one hand clutching the wound in their stomach.

Another figure showed up in Tyler's peripheral vision, all in black against the light of the street lamps, shock baton raised. Tyler lowered his hands, feeling a hysteric laugh creep up in his chest.

This is how it ends, he thought. Of course. It had to be.

He was laughing as the baton came down.

#tyler parker #whump #whump writing #tylers story #handler tyler parker #tara mckenzie #alex nadler

[roboe1]

News and Headlines: 1/4/2022, Keeping you informed.

News and Headlines: 1/4/2022, Keeping you informed.

US News, Politics, World News, Videos, Commentary/Opinion, Keeping you informed. In The NEWS: Exclusive – Rep. Andy Biggs Demands Hearing over J6 Political Prisoners’ ‘Egregious’ Mistreatment Alex Wong/Getty Images In a letter addressed to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Biggs insisted their…

View On WordPress

#Abortion #Candance Owens #Commentary/Opinion #Free Speech/Censorship #Glenn Beck #Greg Gutfeld #In the News #John Stossel #Jordan Peterson #Laura Ingraham #Mollie Hemingway #Politics #PragerU #President Trump #Project Veritas #Russell Brand #Tucker Carlson #World News

[rabbittstewcomics]

Episode 289

Comic Reviews:

Infinite Frontier 0 by Joshua Williamson, James Tynion IV, Scott Snyder, John Timms, Alex Sinclair, Brian Michael Bendis, David Marquez, Tamra Bonvillain, Jorge Jimenez, Tomeu Morey, Becky Cloonan, Michael Conrad, Alitha Martinez, Mark Morales, Emilio Lopez, Joelle Jones, Jordie Bellaire, Stephen Byrne, Tim Sheridan, Rafa Sandoval, Jordi Tarragona, Alejandro Sanchez, Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Jamal Igle, Hi-Fi, Alex Maleev, Geoff Johns, Todd Nauck, Geoffrey Thorne, Dexter Soy, Howard Porter, John Romita Jr, Klaus Janson, Brad Anderson

Suicide Squad 1 by Robbie Thompson, Eduardo Pansica, Julio Ferreira, Marcelo Maiolo

Swamp Thing 1 by Ram V, Mike Perkins, Mike Spicer

Crime Syndicate 1 by Andy Schmidt, Kieran McKeown, Dexter Vines, Steve Oliff

Demon Days: X-Men 1 by Peach Momoko, Zack Davisson

America Chavez: Made in the USA 1 by Kalinda Vazquez, Carlos Gomez, Jesus Aburtov

King in Black: Captain America 1 by Danny Lore, Mirko Colak, Stefano Landini, Roge Antonio, Nico Leon, Erick Arciniega

King in Black: Wiccan and Hulking 1 by Tini Howard, Luciano Vecchio, Espen Grundetjern

Nocterra 1 by Scott Snyder, Tony Daniel, Tomeu Morey

Dead Dog's Bite 1 by Tyler Boss

Undone By Blood or The Other Side of Eden 1 by Lonnie Nadler, Zac Thompson, Sami Kivela, Jason Wordie

Jonna and the Unpossible Monsters 1 by Chris Samnee, Laura Samnee, Matthew Wilson

James Bond: Agent of Spectre 1 by Christos Gage, Luca Casalanguida, Heather Moore

Chariot 1 by Bryan Edward Hill, Priscilla Petraites, Marco Lesko

BRZRKR 1 by Keanu Reeves, Matt Kindt, Ron Garney, Bill Crabtree

Nottingham 1 by David Hazan, Shane Connery Volk, Luca Romano

99 Cent Theatre (TKO):

Seeds of Eden 1 by Joe Corallo, Liana Kangas, Paul Azaceta

Night Train 1 by Steve Foxe, Patricio Delpeche, Lisandro Estherren, Steve Wands

Hand Me Down 1 by Alex Paknadel, Jen Hickman

Killiamsburgh 1 by Erick Freitas, Jesus Hervas

Dame From the Dark 1 by Rob Pilkington, Kit Mills

A Kitten by Nathaniel Wilson

Priya and the Wolves by Ruchira Gupta, Melanconnie

Allergic by Megan Wagner Lloyd, Michelle Mee Nuttler

The Goblet at the Black Oak by John Kratky, Walter Barna, Joel Cotejar, Janessa Douglas

The Goddess of Areth 1 by Tyrone Washington Hunte

Additional Reviews: 12 Angry Men, Colonel Weird Cosmagog, American Murder, Trust Me s2, Tom & Jerry, Paramount+, Detective 80th HC, The Thick of It, Raya and the Last Dragon, WandaVision ep9

News: new Boom! book by Seth Rogan?, Supergirl 8-issue mini by Tom King and Bilquis Evely, Superman & Lois renewed, Battle Chasers returning, rumors about MCU and X-Men, Cable ending at 12,  Shadecraft optioned, Night-Gwen, Lola Bunny

Trailers: Thunder Force, Boss Baby 2

Comics Countdown:

Nocterra 1 by Scott Snyder, Tony Daniel, Tomeu Morey

Fear Case 2 by Matt Kindt, Tyler Jenkins, Hilary Jenkins

Runaways 34 by Rainbow Rowell, Andres Genolet, Dee Cunniffe

Batman 106 by James Tynion IV, Jorge Jimenez, Tomeu Morey, Joshua Williamson, Gleb Melnikov

Infinite Frontier 0

Dead Dogs Bite 1 by Tyler Boss

King in Black: Wiccan and Hulkling 1 by Tini Howard, Luciano Vecchio, Espen Grundetjern

Firepower 9 by Robert Kirkman, Chris Samnee, Matt Wilson

The Plot 8 by Michael Moreci, Tim Daniel, Joshua Hixson, Jordan Boyd

Avengers 43 by Jason Aaron, Javier Garron, David Curiel

Check out this episode!

#comics #podcast #podernfamily #rabbittstew

[cardest]

Boston, Salem & MA playlist

Ever been to Boston and Salem in Massachusetts? I hope to someday soon. Salem, Bruins, Cape Cod, Edgar Allen Poe, the history! Many great bands hail from Boston and Massachusetts, like Dinosuar Jr, Aerosmith and Guerilla Toss...ugh! So many bands. Converge, Isis, Cave-In, Pixies, Magic Circle....Not to mention the songs about Salem, MA and the witch trials, Edgar Allen Poe, Emily Dickinson and even Lizzy Bordon (in RI section).  The history of this region is fascinating. The Pilgrims and the Boston Tea Party etc. Many songs about this period of time. Hope you enjoy this playlist. Also I threw in a little Rhode Island and New Hampshire too.

Remember people, live life deliciously!

001 Times Of Grace - Strength In Numbers 002 Boston - Peace of Mind 003 Dinosaur Jr - Freak Scene 004 Pixies - trompe le monde 005 Cheers TV show - Opening 006 Aerosmith - Beyond Beautiful 007 The Byrds - Boston 008 Dave Loggins - Please Come To Boston 009 The Sensational Alex Harvey Band - Boston Tea Party 010 Buffalo Tom - Crutch 011 Escuela Grind - No Worship 012 Made Out Of Babies - Grimace (The Ruiner) 013 dropkick murphys -for boston 014 Lemonheads - Hate Your Friends 015 The Cars - Drive 016 Morphine - Honey White 017 The Breeders - Cannonball 018 Isis - Ghost Key 019 Better Than Ezra - Normal Town 020 Killswitch Engage - Starting Over 021 Converge -  Sadness Comes Home 022 Grief - Come To Grief 023 Aerosmith - Draw The Line 024 Dinosaur Jr. -  Watch the Corners 025 Friend & Lover - Boston is a lovely town 026 Magic Circle -  Departed Souls 027 All Pigs Must Die - Hungry Wolf, Easy Prey 028 Shadows Fall - The Light That Blinds 029 The Bee Gees- 'Massachusetts' 030 Belly - Feed The Tree 031 Boston - Rock and Roll Band 032 The Pixies - Planet Of Sound 033 Amanda Palmer & The Grand Theft Orchestra - Massachusetts Avenue 034 Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch - Good Vibrations 035 The Rosebuds - Back To Boston 036 Cave In - Inspire 037 Pearl Jam - Brain of J. 038 Tool - Sweat 039 Adam Ant - Bright Lights Black Leather 040 Tristania - My Lost Lenore 041 Nevermore - This Godless Endeavor 042 The Kingston Trio - MTA 043 Ylvis - Massachusetts 044 Captain Beefheart - 25th Century Quaker 045 Elder - Deadweight 046 Morne - Coming Of Winter 047 Lou Reed - I Wanna Be Black 048 Lyres - Boston 049 Rotting Christ - The Raven 050 Killswitch Engage- Rose Of Sharyn 051 Macabre - Boston Strangler Albert de Salvo 052 Dar Williams - Flinty Kind of Woman 053 STEELY DAN, The Boston Rag 054 The Beach Boys - Do You Like Worms 055 The Freeze-This is Boston not LA 056 Art Gruthie - Massachusetts 057 THE CARS _ Good Times Roll 058 Richard Band - Re-Animator OST Prologue - Main Title 059 Gang Green - Skate To Hell 060 Guerilla Toss - Come Up With Me 061 Karyn Crisis' Gospel of the Witches -Salem's Wounds 062 Agoraphobic Nosebleed - Agorapocalypse now 063 the MODERN LOVERS _Roadrunner_ 1972 064 Edgar Allen Poe - Black Cat 065 Rammstein - Stein um Stein 066 The Necromancers - Salem Girl Part I 067 Orange Goblin - Sons Of Salem 068 Danny Elfman - [Sleepy Hollow OST] Main Titles 069 King Diamond - Abigail 070 The Cult - The Witch 071 Witch - Eye 072 Cavalera Conspiracy -  The Crucible 073 Queens Of The Stone Age -  Burn The Witch 074 Salem - Witch Burning 075 Danny Elfman - [Sleepy Hollow OST] Into The Woods (The Witch) 076 Clutch - Sucker for the Witch 077 Bewitched TV show  - Theme 078 John Zorn - Witchfinder 079 Blood Ceremony -  The Witch's Dance 080 Billy Talent - The dead can't Testify 081 The Misfits -  Witch Hunt 082 Rob Zombie - Lords Of Salem 083 Acid Witch -  Witchfynder Finder 084 King Diamond - Salem 085 The Cramps Big Black Witchcraft Rock 086 Mount Salem - Lucid 087 Sleepy Hollow TV SHow - Main Theme 088 Demons & Wizards - Beneath These Waves 089 Hexvessel -  Woman of Salem 090 Cradle of Filth - Her Ghost in the Fog 091 Metal Church - Of Unsound mind 092 Lich King -  Ed-209 093 Disrupt - Religion is a Fraud 094 The Witch OST - Witch's Coven 095 Fuming Mouth - Out of the Shadows 096 Abigail Williams - Acolytes 097 Clutch -  Worm Drink 098 1476 - A Circle Of Hope & Despair 099 Sleepy Hollow (2014) Soundtrack 100 Pixies - All Over the World 101 Sonic Youth - New Hampshire 102 Meliah Rage - Absolute Power 103 Albert Goes West - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds 104 Symphony X - King of Terrors 105 Alan Vega - American Dreamer 106 Van Der Graaf Generator - Pilgrims 107 ZZ Top  - I Thank You 108 Walt Disney's Johnny Tremain, _The Sons of Liberty 109 Paul Simon - American Tune (LP version) 110 SAXON - Sailing to America 111 Old Man Gloom  - Skullstorm 112 Mastodon -  I Am Ahab 113 Patti Page - Old Cape Cod 114 Ty Seagull - Archangel Thunderbird 115 Morphine - Buena 116 Manticora - On a Sea of Grass 117 Young Widows -  Old Skin 118 Hurriganes - Slippin And Slidin 119 Glacier - O World! I Remain No Longer Here. 120 Marissa Nadler - Blue Vapor 121 SEA - Penumbra 122 Vital Remains - Infidel 123 Throwing Muses - Bright Yellow Gun 124 Ike and Tina Topless Turner - Sweet Rhode Island Red 125 Flotsam and Jetsam -  She Took an Axe 126 Lizzy Borden - Council for the Cauldron 127 Rob Noyes - Further off 128 The Real Kids - All Kindsa Girls 129 Immunerable Forms - Puritys Demand 130 Blonde Redhead  - Inside You 131 Agoraphobic Nosebleed - Agorapocalypse Now 132 Wear Your Wounds - Adrift In You 133 Howlin' Rain - Phantom In The Valley 134 J Mascis - Every Morning 135 Killswitch Engage - The Signal Fire (feat. Howard Jones) 136 Refuse Resist - _Still in Massachusetts 137 Church of Misery - Boston Strangler 138 City On A Hill TV show - Opening Theme 139 Pixies - U-Mass 140 Warhorse - Amber Vial 141 Zozobra - The Cruelest Cut 142 REVOCATION - Scattering The Flock 143 Metal Church - Of unsound mind 144 Seven Spires - Drowner Of Worlds 145 Boston Legal - TV show theme song 146 Converge -  Trespasses 147 Cave In - Anchor 148 Give up the Ghost - Love American 149 Dinosaur Jr. - Tiny 150 Boston Bruins theme song - Lets Go Bruins 151 Buffalo Tom - Staples 152 Trap Them - [Crown Feral #02] Hellionaires 153 Knights Of Bostonia - State Radio 154 Juliana Hatfield 3 - Feelin Massachusetts 155 The Red Chord  - Hymns And Crippled Anthems 156 CLUTCH - Emily Dickinson 157 New Kids On The Block - Step By Step 158 MELIAH RAGE - Decline of rule 159 Belly - Gepetto 160 AEROSMITH - Get A Grip 666 Denis Leary  - ASSHOLE  Also, check out the awesome L.A Witch Halloween Quarantine playlist at: https://floodmagazine.com/82347/l-a-witch-quarantine-helloween-playlist/?fbclid=IwAR3QRJEIMt57z-X_Zrfx5Ae7rjLkLdpOnjes6iv4yczqxAvLcG3OdfCulWw

#boston playlist #boston bands #music from boston #salem witches #lizzy borden #salem witch trials #bands from Massachussets #Old Man Gloom #dinosaur jr #Pixies #edgar allan poe #edgar allan poe music

[scifigeneration]

The Milky Way's satellites help reveal link between dark matter halos and galaxy formation

Just as the sun has planets and the planets have moons, our galaxy has satellite galaxies, and some of those might have smaller satellite galaxies of their own. To wit, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a relatively large satellite galaxy visible from the Southern Hemisphere, is thought to have brought at least six of its own satellite galaxies with it when it first approached the Milky Way, based on recent measurements from the European Space Agency's Gaia mission.

Astrophysicists believe that dark matter is responsible for much of that structure, and now researchers at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the Dark Energy Survey have drawn on observations of faint galaxies around the Milky Way to place tighter constraints on the connection between the size and structure of galaxies and the dark matter halos that surround them. At the same time, they have found more evidence for the existence of LMC satellite galaxies and made a new prediction: If the scientists' models are correct, the Milky Way should have an additional 150 or more very faint satellite galaxies awaiting discovery by next-generation projects such as the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time.

The new study, forthcoming in the Astrophysical Journal and available as a preprint here, is part of a larger effort to understand how dark matter works on scales smaller than our galaxy, said Ethan Nadler, the study's first author and a graduate student at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC) and Stanford University.

"We know some things about dark matter very well -- how much dark matter is there, how does it cluster -- but all of these statements are qualified by saying, yes, that is how it behaves on scales larger than the size of our local group of galaxies," Nadler said. "And then the question is, does that work on the smallest scales we can measure?"

Shining galaxies' light on dark matter

Astronomers have long known the Milky Way has satellite galaxies, including the Large Magellanic Cloud, which can be seen by the naked eye from the Southern Hemisphere, but the number was thought to be around just a dozen or so until around the year 2000. Since then, the number of observed satellite galaxies has risen dramatically. Thanks to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and more recent discoveries by projects including the Dark Energy Survey (DES), the number of known satellite galaxies has climbed to about 60.

Such discoveries are always exciting, but what's perhaps most exciting is what the data could tell us about the cosmos. "For the first time, we can look for these satellite galaxies across about three-quarters of the sky, and that's really important to several different ways of learning about dark matter and galaxy formation," said Risa Wechsler, director of KIPAC. Last year, for example, Wechsler, Nadler and colleagues used data on satellite galaxies in conjunction with computer simulations to place much tighter limits on dark matter's interactions with ordinary matter.

Now, Wechsler, Nadler and the DES team are using data from a comprehensive search over most of the sky to ask different questions, including how much dark matter it takes to form a galaxy, how many satellite galaxies we should expect to find around the Milky Way and whether galaxies can bring their own satellites into orbit around our own -- a key prediction of the most popular model of dark matter.

Hints of galactic hierarchy

The answer to that last question appears to be a resounding "yes."

The possibility of detecting a hierarchy of satellite galaxies first arose some years back when DES detected more satellite galaxies in the vicinity of the Large Magellanic Cloud than they would have expected if those satellites were randomly distributed throughout the sky. Those observations are particularly interesting, Nadler said, in light of the Gaia measurements, which indicated that six of these satellite galaxies fell into the Milky Way with the LMC.

To study the LMC's satellites more thoroughly, Nadler and team analyzed computer simulations of millions of possible universes. Those simulations, originally run by Yao-Yuan Mao, a former graduate student of Wechsler's who is now at Rutgers University, model the formation of dark matter structure that permeates the Milky Way, including details such as smaller dark matter clumps within the Milky Way that are expected to host satellite galaxies. To connect dark matter to galaxy formation, the researchers used a flexible model that allows them to account for uncertainties in the current understanding of galaxy formation, including the relationship between galaxies' brightness and the mass of dark matter clumps within which they form.

An effort led by the others in the DES team, including former KIPAC students Alex Drlica-Wagner, a Wilson Fellow at Fermilab and an assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Chicago, and Keith Bechtol, an assistant professor of physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and their collaborators produced the crucial final step: a model of which satellite galaxies are most likely to be seen by current surveys, given where they are in the sky as well as their brightness, size and distance.

Those components in hand, the team ran their model with a wide range of parameters and searched for simulations in which LMC-like objects fell into the gravitational pull of a Milky Way-like galaxy. By comparing those cases with galactic observations, they could infer a range of astrophysical parameters, including how many satellite galaxies should have tagged along with the LMC. The results, Nadler said, were consistent with Gaia observations: Six satellite galaxies should currently be detected in the vicinity of the LMC, moving with roughly the right velocities and in roughly the same places as astronomers had previously observed. The simulations also suggested that the LMC first approached the Milky Way about 2.2 billion years ago, consistent with high-precision measurements of the motion of the LMC from the Hubble Space Telescope.

Galaxies yet unseen

In addition to the LMC findings, the team also put limits on the connection between dark matter halos and galaxy structure. For example, in simulations that most closely matched the history of the Milky Way and the LMC, the smallest galaxies astronomers could currently observe should have stars with a combined mass of around a hundred suns, and about a million times as much dark matter. According to an extrapolation of the model, the faintest galaxies that could ever be observed could form in halos up to a hundred times less massive than that.

And there could be more discoveries to come: If the simulations are correct, Nadler said, there are around 100 more satellite galaxies -- more than double the number already discovered -- hovering around the Milky Way. The discovery of those galaxies would help confirm the researchers' model of the links between dark matter and galaxy formation, he said, and likely place tighter constraints on the nature of dark matter itself.

The research was a collaborative effort within the Dark Energy Survey, led by the Milky Way Working Group, with substantial contributions from junior members including Sidney Mau, an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, and Mitch McNanna, a graduate student at UW-Madison. The research was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship, by the Department of Energy's Office of Science through SLAC, and by Stanford University.

#science #science news #space #astronomy #the galaxy...ad infinitum #milyway galaxy #stars #astrophysics

[nothingman]

>

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

On Wednesday, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a massive antitrust lawsuit against Facebook, claiming the social media giant has harmed competition by buying up smaller companies like Instagram and WhatsApp to squash the threat they posed to its business. Forty-seven other state and regional attorneys general are joining the suit.

The lawsuit centers on Facebook’s history of acquisitions starting, particularly its $1 billion purchase of Instagram in 2011. In addition to its acquisition strategy, the attorneys general allege that Facebook used the power and reach of its platform to stifle user growth for competing services.

“Facebook has broken the law. It must be broken up.”

“For nearly a decade, Facebook has used its dominance and monopoly power to crush smaller rivals and snuff out competition,” James said in a press conference today. “Facebook used vast amounts of money to acquire potential rivals before they could threaten the company’s dominance.”

The Federal Trade Commission is expected to bring a lawsuit against Facebook on similar grounds later today. The FTC case goes even further than the state case, explicitly calling on the court to unwind the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, spinning off both into independent companies.

“Our aim is to roll back Facebook’s anticompetitive conduct and restore competition so that innovation and free competition can thrive,” said Ian Conner, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, in a statement.

The FTC case also echoes the state AGs’ claims about anticompetitive use of platform power, particularly Facebook’s practice of “cutting off API access to blunt perceived competitive threats.” The FTC case cites Facebook’s decision to block Vine’s friend-finding feature after the Twitter acquisition as a particularly flagrant instance of this behavior.

In a newsroom statement, Facebook said both acquisitions had been cleared by regulatory agencies, and that overturning them after the fact would set a dangerous precedent. “Years after the FTC cleared our acquisitions, the government now wants a do-over with no regard for the impact that precedent would have on the broader business community or the people who choose our products every day,” the company said.

In emails revealed by the House of Representatives’ antitrust subcommittee hearing this summer, Zuckerberg characterized his intent to buy Instagram in emails to his David Ebersman, who was then Facebook’s chief financial officer, as a way to neutralize a competitor while at the same time improving Facebook — by incorporating the features its competitor invented before any other upstart has enough time to catch up and pose a similar threat.

“It appears Facebook simply bought these firms to expand its dominance”

“One way of looking at this is that what we’re really buying is time. Even if some new competitors springs up, buying Instagram, Path, Foursquare, etc now will give us a year or more to integrate their dynamics before anyone can get close to their scale again. Within that time, if we incorporate the social mechanics they were using, those new products won’t get much traction since we’ll already have their mechanics deployed at scale,” Zuckerberg explained.

Within the hour, Zuckerberg sent a follow-up reply, writing, “I didn’t mean to imply that we’d be buying them to prevent them from competing with us in any way,” he wrote. Antitrust lawyers saw that as an admission of guilt from Zuckerberg, who appeared to realize that what he wrote in those emails regarding his acquisition strategy constituted anticompetitive behavior.

Another pillar of the states’ antitrust lawsuit is whether Facebook acquiring a company made the product worse off from a consumer benefit standpoint — in particular, with regard to privacy. Facebook has long claimed that its resources and scale are responsible for turning apps like Instagram and WhatsApp into gigantic platforms with billions of users. But investigators targeting the deals for anticompetitive behavior are examining how, for instance, Facebook’s purchase of WhatsApp and its decision to later utilize WhatsApp user data may have harmed consumers and stifled competition from rivals with better privacy practices.

Notably, the creators of both Instagram and WhatsApp have left Facebook — some, like WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton, vocally disagreeing with the direction Facebook took his product and what the company has done to privacy in general. WhatsApp’s other co-founder, Jan Koum, left shortly after Acton, having reportedly clashed with Facebook leadership over its data-sharing initiative. Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger left the company over years of built-up tensions between the photo-sharing app and its relationship to Facebook’s business.

The actions are already drawing applause from antitrust advocates in Congress. Representative David Cicilline (D-RI), who led the House Antitrust hearing in July, cheered on the lawsuits in a statement to the press. “Facebook is a monopoly,” said Rep. Cicilline. “Facebook has broken the law. It must be broken up. I applaud the FTC and state attorneys general who are leading this effort today.”

Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) echoed the comments, taking particular aim at the Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions. “Rather than competing with Instagram and WhatsApp, it appears Facebook simply bought these firms to expand its dominance,” said Rep. Nadler. “This should never have happened in the first place, and accountability is long overdue.”

The lawsuit marks the second major regulatory effort from the US government to rein in Big Tech, following the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against Google in October for alleged illegal monopolization of the search and online ad markets.

Developing...

via: https://ift.tt/3n1JgI9

#IFTTT #Feedly #Nothingman uses Feedly #Internet

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

The Milky Way's satellites help reveal link between dark matter halos and galaxy formation Just as the sun has planets and the planets have moons, our galaxy has satellite galaxies, and some of those might have smaller satellite galaxies of their own. To wit, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a relatively large satellite galaxy visible from the Southern Hemisphere, is thought to have brought at least six of its own satellite galaxies with it when it first approached the Milky Way, based on recent measurements from the European Space Agency's Gaia mission. Astrophysicists believe that dark matter is responsible for much of that structure, and now researchers at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the Dark Energy Survey have drawn on observations of faint galaxies around the Milky Way to place tighter constraints on the connection between the size and structure of galaxies and the dark matter halos that surround them. At the same time, they have found more evidence for the existence of LMC satellite galaxies and made a new prediction: If the scientists' models are correct, the Milky Way should have an additional 150 or more very faint satellite galaxies awaiting discovery by next-generation projects such as the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time. The new study, forthcoming in the Astrophysical Journal and available as a preprint here, is part of a larger effort to understand how dark matter works on scales smaller than our galaxy, said Ethan Nadler, the study's first author and a graduate student at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC) and Stanford University. "We know some things about dark matter very well - how much dark matter is there, how does it cluster - but all of these statements are qualified by saying, yes, that is how it behaves on scales larger than the size of our local group of galaxies," Nadler said. "And then the question is, does that work on the smallest scales we can measure?" Shining galaxies' light on dark matter Astronomers have long known the Milky Way has satellite galaxies, including the Large Magellanic Cloud, which can be seen by the naked eye from the Southern Hemisphere, but the number was thought to be around just a dozen or so until around the year 2000. Since then, the number of observed satellite galaxies has risen dramatically. Thanks to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and more recent discoveries by projects including the Dark Energy Survey (DES), the number of known satellite galaxies has climbed to about 60. Such discoveries are always exciting, but what's perhaps most exciting is what the data could tell us about the cosmos. "For the first time, we can look for these satellite galaxies across about three-quarters of the sky, and that's really important to several different ways of learning about dark matter and galaxy formation," said Risa Wechsler, director of KIPAC. Last year, for example, Wechsler, Nadler and colleagues used data on satellite galaxies in conjunction with computer simulations to place much tighter limits on dark matter's interactions with ordinary matter. Now, Wechsler, Nadler and the DES team are using data from a comprehensive search over most of the sky to ask different questions, including how much dark matter it takes to form a galaxy, how many satellite galaxies we should expect to find around the Milky Way and whether galaxies can bring their own satellites into orbit around our own - a key prediction of the most popular model of dark matter. Hints of galactic hierarchy The answer to that last question appears to be a resounding "yes." The possibility of detecting a hierarchy of satellite galaxies first arose some years back when DES detected more satellite galaxies in the vicinity of the Large Magellanic Cloud than they would have expected if those satellites were randomly distributed throughout the sky. Those observations are particularly interesting, Nadler said, in light of the Gaia measurements, which indicated that six of these satellite galaxies fell into the Milky Way with the LMC. To study the LMC's satellites more thoroughly, Nadler and team analyzed computer simulations of millions of possible universes. Those simulations, originally run by Yao-Yuan Mao, a former graduate student of Wechsler's who is now at Rutgers University, model the formation of dark matter structure that permeates the Milky Way, including details such as smaller dark matter clumps within the Milky Way that are expected to host satellite galaxies. To connect dark matter to galaxy formation, the researchers used a flexible model that allows them to account for uncertainties in the current understanding of galaxy formation, including the relationship between galaxies' brightness and the mass of dark matter clumps within which they form. An effort led by the others in the DES team, including former KIPAC students Alex Drlica-Wagner, a Wilson Fellow at Fermilab and an assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Chicago, and Keith Bechtol, an assistant professor of physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and their collaborators produced the crucial final step: a model of which satellite galaxies are most likely to be seen by current surveys, given where they are in the sky as well as their brightness, size and distance. Those components in hand, the team ran their model with a wide range of parameters and searched for simulations in which LMC-like objects fell into the gravitational pull of a Milky Way-like galaxy. By comparing those cases with galactic observations, they could infer a range of astrophysical parameters, including how many satellite galaxies should have tagged along with the LMC. The results, Nadler said, were consistent with Gaia observations: Six satellite galaxies should currently be detected in the vicinity of the LMC, moving with roughly the right velocities and in roughly the same places as astronomers had previously observed. The simulations also suggested that the LMC first approached the Milky Way about 2.2 billion years ago, consistent with high-precision measurements of the motion of the LMC from the Hubble Space Telescope. Galaxies yet unseen In addition to the LMC findings, the team also put limits on the connection between dark matter halos and galaxy structure. For example, in simulations that most closely matched the history of the Milky Way and the LMC, the smallest galaxies astronomers could currently observe should have stars with a combined mass of around a hundred suns, and about a million times as much dark matter. According to an extrapolation of the model, the faintest galaxies that could ever be observed could form in halos up to a hundred times less massive than that. And there could be more discoveries to come: If the simulations are correct, Nadler said, there are around 100 more satellite galaxies - more than double the number already discovered - hovering around the Milky Way. The discovery of those galaxies would help confirm the researchers' model of the links between dark matter and galaxy formation, he said, and likely place tighter constraints on the nature of dark matter itself. The research was a collaborative effort within the Dark Energy Survey, led by the Milky Way Working Group, with substantial contributions from junior members including Sidney Mau, an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, and Mitch McNanna, a graduate student at UW-Madison. The research was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship, by the Department of Energy's Office of Science through SLAC, and by Stanford University. Citation: Ethan Nadler et al., accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal and available as an arXiv preprint (https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.03303)

#space #science #Astronomy #physics #dark matter #galactic evolution

[eddycurrents]

For the week of 11 November 2019

Quick Bits:

Batman & The Outsiders #7 throws some further ramifications of Ra’s al Ghul and his minions meddling with Duke and Sofia. Some particularly disturbing transformations going on with Duke that should be interesting. The level of intrigue that Bryan Hill is keeping in the story is gripping.

| Published by DC Comics

The Batman’s Grave #2 is another excellent issue. A little more packed with action than the first one, allowing Bryan Hitch to cut loose with some of the sequences. Also, I’m loving the humour that Warren Ellis is giving us between Alfred and Bruce. That acerbic wit is something we’ve seen from Alfred a lot and Ellis just nails the voice.

| Published by DC Comics

Battlepug #3 is more fun from Mike Norton, Allen Passalaqua, and Crank! Some really nice stuff here as Bryony cuts loose on Nobody’s Ponies. I absolutely love the mix of traditional sword and sorcery storytelling with rather over-the-top humour that basically lampoons it at the same time.

| Published by Image

Black Cat Annual #1 is a fun tale of a heist on the Maggia by Black Cat and Spider-Man from Jed MacKay, Joey Vazquez, Natacha Bustos, Juan Gedeon, Brian Reber, and Ferran Delgado. It features the usual humour and action that we see in the series and I quite like how the artists are broken up each following one particular aspect of the story. Though it’s all one narrative, it gives a nice differing feel to each part.

| Published by Marvel

Black Hammer / Justice League: Hammer of Justice #5 concludes what has been an excellent series from Jeff Lemire, Michael Walsh, and Nate Piekos. Ultimately, this has reminded me of the old JLA/JSA crossovers of old, and just feels great as an overall story. Plus the possibility of seeing a sequel.

| Published by Dark Horse & DC Comics

Black Panther and the Agents of Wakanda #3 begins “God Loves, Moon Kills”, another two-parter for this series, from Jim Zub, Lan Medina, Craig Yeung, Marcio Menyz, Federico Blee, and Joe Sabino. I love this story format, giving us essentially quick-hit missions dealing with a problem and then moving on. It’s yielded some pretty tight storytelling and some fascinating situations.

| Published by Marvel

Black Stars Above #1 is another incredible debut for Vault, with Lonnie Nadler, Jenna Cha, Brad Simpson, and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou delivering an incredibly deep and unique horror story. It centres around a young woman in a family of fur traders, as the trade itself begins to die in Canada, and it’s impressive as to how real the characters and their struggle feels. The artwork from Cha and Simpson is exquisite.

| Published by Vault

Buffy + Angel: Hellmouth #2 continues Buffy and Angel’s descent through hell. It’s much more cerebral than you’d expect, with the demons trying to get into Buffy and Angel’s respective heads in order to manipulate and destroy them. Plus, a rather interesting surprise. Jordie Bellaire, Jeremy Lambert, Eleonora Carlini, Cris Peter, and Ed Dukeshire are doing some great work with the core of this event.

| Published by BOOM! Studios

Collapser #5 somehow gets even stranger in this penultimate issue as Liam creates a “perfect” world to run away from the problems he’s having in the real world. The real world bleeding through and a revelation of his girlfriend’s true intentions just ratchet up the strangeness further. Mikey Way, Shaun Simon, Ilias Kyriazis, Cris Peter, and Simon Bowland are just doing amazing work here.

| Published by DC Comics / Young Animal

Detective Comics #1015 takes an interesting turn as Nora decides that she likes being a villain. Through this, Peter J. Tomasi is definitely showing an interesting side to Mr. Freeze, emphasizing again that he’s a rather conflicted villain, only doing the various heinous actions to save his wife. Who now doesn’t need him.

| Published by DC Comics

Doctor Mirage #4 features more incredibly beautiful, inventive artwork from Nick Robles and Jordie Bellaire. The visual storytelling as Shan faces the Embalmer is just incredible. Magdalene Visaggio, Robles, Bellaire, and Dave Sharpe continue to deliver magic with this penultimate issue.

| Published by Valiant

Edgar Allan Poe’s Snifter of Terror: Season Two #2 is another entertaining issue. The lead tale from Tom Peyer, Greg Scott, Lee Loughridge, and Rob Steen has traditional EC Comics horror vibes, as a scientist tries to communicate with our worm overlords. In one of the comics back-ups Mark Russell, Peter Snejbjerg, and Steen revisit the world of the breakfast cereal monsters. And there’s the usual prose pieces, poetry, and Hunt Emerson’s Black Cat. 

| Published by Ahoy

Event Leviathan #6 concludes this series from Brian Michael Bendis, Alex Maleev, and Josh Reed. How much you enjoy it will hinge on how much you enjoy Maleev’s art and the realization that most of this tale is about moving one person off the board and the reveal of Leviathan to set up further stories. Also, Bendis paints a Batman who is ridiculously terrible at hiding his secret identity.

| Published by DC Comics

Fallen Angels #1 is the final new first issue of this first wave of “Dawn of X” titles and in many ways it’s more personal than the other X-titles, even Excalibur, delving into Psylocke (the former Kwannon, not Betsy Braddock) and her past. Bryan Hill, Szymon Kudranski, Frank D’Armata, and Joe Sabino deliver an interesting story with hooks on the darker side of the X-world, including some ominous bits from Magneto and Sinister, but I question the inclusion of X-23 and Cable. They don’t exactly seem to fit the roles they’ve been put into here.

| Published by Marvel

Family Tree #1 is a phenomenal debut from Jeff Lemire, Phil Hester, Eric Gapstur, Ryan Cody, and Steve Wands. This first issue perfectly captures that insidious nature of family drama mixed with creeping terror and body horror as a bizarre plague begins spreading across America.

| Published by Image

Far Sector #1 is one of the most impressive debuts I’ve read in a long time. NK Jemisin, Jamal Campbell, and Deron Bennett create a rich new world in the City Enduring and a compelling character in the new Green Lantern, Sojourner Mullein. The murder mystery that ties everything together is just the icing on the cake. Incredible world-building here and drop dead gorgeous artwork. Do not miss this.

| Published by DC Comics / Young Animal

The Flash #82 is part one of “Rogues’ Reign” from Joshua Williamson, Rafa Sandoval, Jordi Tarragona, Arif Prianto, and Steve Wands. It features a Central City taken over by the Rogues, transformed into their own personal playgrounds, as the Flash is nowhere to be found. It’s not bad, but the amount you’re going to like it may be relative to how much you’re also enjoying “City of Bane” and the recently concluded similar arc involving the Trickster.

| Published by DC Comics

Folklords #1 is off to a fantastic start from Matt Kindt, Matt Smith, Chris O’Halloran, and Jim Campbell. It starts off with a precocious kid in a fantasy world who’s been having visions of what essentially amounts to our world, whose quest sets out a rather draconian lockdown on their society when the Librarians rein in everyone from illicit action, like finding the Folklords. Highly recommended.

| Published by BOOM! Studios

Forgotten Home #2 reveals more about Jannada, its history and society, and how an unjust queen was brought to rule through racial warfare. Love the artwork from Marika Cresta and Matt Emmons.

| Published by Vices Press

Gideon Falls #18 unleashes the Laughing Man on reality in part two of “The Pentoculus”. Jeff Lemire, Andrea Sorrentino, Dave Stewart, and Steve Wands are beautifully unfolding this twisted and horrific flower of a story.

| Published by Image

Gotham City Monsters #3 adds another element of DC lore to the series as Melmoth claims a particular prize. I really quite like how Steve Orlando, Amancay Nahuelpan, Trish Mulvihill, and Tom Napolitano are pulling together disparate bits of Gotham and beyond to craft this story.

| Published by DC Comics

Guardians of the Galaxy #11 is the penultimate issue of this series from Donny Cate, Cory Smith, Victor Olazaba, David Curiel, and Cory Petit. It’s basically a big fight between the remaining Guardians and everyone else. It doesn’t go so well.

| Published by Marvel

Hawkman #18 takes a somewhat different approach to Hawkman’s infection than what we’ve seen of the others so far. Rather than being a dark reflection of Hawkman’s own desires, he’s taken over by an Earth-3 incarnation in Sky Tyrant. Robert Venditti, Pat Olliffe, Tom Palmer, Jeremiah Skipper, and Richard Starkings & Comicraft instead use that to play the spirit of our Hawkman against.

| Published by DC Comics

Hit-Girl: Season Two #10 is part two of “India”. The artwork from Alison Sampson and Tríona Farrell is impressive, given an amazing level of detail to bringing Mumbai to life. Brutal and rich in colour.

| Published by Image

House of Whispers #15 takes a new twist as the Corinthian finds the House of Watchers, takes over, and everything changes. Nalo Hopkinson, Dan Watters, Dominike “Dono” Stanton, Zac Atkinson, and AndWorld Design kick off some new terrors as even Erzulie’s status quo is upended, and we get another guest appearance of John Constantine’s homecoming.

| Published by DC Comics - Black Label / The Sandman Universe

Invaders #11 pushes deeper into Steve and Namor’s history and relationship, as Steve refuses to give up on his old friend. There’s some very heavy, very good character work here as we head into the final issue. Chip Zdarsky, Carlos Magno, Butch Guice, Alex Guimarães, and Travis Lanham continue to astonish at the incredibly high bar they’ve set for this story.

| Published by Marvel

Justice League Odyssey #15 is a fun tale from Dan Abnett, Will Conrad, Rain Beredo, Pete Pantazis, and AndWorld Design. Jessica Cruz leading a rag tag band of villains (and Orion) against Darkseid and the previous JLO turned evil is unfolding as a very entertaining story with some interesting twists. Also, Dex-Starr is awesome.

| Published by DC Comics

Morbius #1 isn’t a bad start from Vita Ayala, Marcelo Ferreira, Roberto Poggi, Dono Sánchez-Almara, and Clayton Cowles. This first issue is largely just action as Morbius sets out on his quest to cure himself, again, but it’s not bad. The art from Ferreira, Poggi, and Sánchez-Almara is very nice.

| Published by Marvel

Oblivion Song #21 continues the slowburn investigation and reconnaissance of the Faceless Men’s base, as Marco tries to map it out and discover where they’re holding all of the people who decided to stay in Oblivion. Gorgeous artwork from Lorenzo De Felici and Annalisa Leoni as we see more of the Faceless Men’s technology.

| Published by Image / Skybound

Psi-Lords #6 does a bit more world-building as we find out more about the Psi-Lords and the Starwatchers, even as the four Earthers are beset by the other Marked in a bizarre farce of a trial. Fred Van Lente, Renato Guedes, and Dave Sharpe are telling a pretty great sci-fi adventure tale here. It largely stands alone in the greater Valiant universe framework and deserves more attention than its getting.

| Published by Valiant

Punisher: Soviet #1 is another welcome return to the Punisher by Garth Ennis, stepping back into Frank’s adventures like he never left. Ennis, Jacen Burrows, Guillermo Ortego, Nolan Woodard, and Rob Steen deliver a brutal and bloody beginning as Frank chases down someone who everyone seems to think is him.

| Published by Marvel / MAX

Reaver #5 is a fairly impressive spotlight for Breaker as he does what he really didn’t want to do again in order to help his “friends”. Justin Jordan, Rebekah Isaacs, Alex Guimarães, and Clayton Cowles present a number of twists and surprises in one of the most brutal issues yet.

| Published by Image / Skybound

Ronin Island #8 sees the remaining islanders largely stand together as they try to both stand up to and flee from the Shogun’s soldiers and madness. With a terrible occurrence that looks like it’s going to cause even more problems for the survivors. Giannis Milonogiannis and Irma Kniivila’s art continues to be everything.

| Published by BOOM! Studios

Sea of Stars #5 very nicely puts the pieces together as a disconsolate Gil has been captured and basically given up thinking Kadyn dead is brought to the world where his son is about to be gutted. Jason Aaron, Dennis Hallum, Stephen Green, Rico Renzi, and Jared K. Fletcher are telling an incredible story here and this issue throws even more twists at the reader.

| Published by Image

Seven Days #2 unfolds some of the fallout of people learning that they only have seven days left, as the superhero community is enlisted to try to stop whatever the shiny harbinger things are. Gail Simone, José Luís, Jonas Trinidade, Michelle Madsen, and Saida Temofonte are continuing to build an intriguing story here as we get more and more of the breadth of the Catalyst Prime universe.

| Published by Lion Forge / Catalyst Prime

Superman #17 is kind of a housekeeping issue from Brian Michael Bendis, Kevin Maguire, Paul Mounts, and Dave Sharpe, acting as a prologue to “The Truth”. A bit of reflection on the Unity Saga, Event Leviathan, and Year of the Villain.

| Published by DC Comics

Tales from the Dark Multiverse: Blackest Night #1 might well be the best of these one-shots yet. Tim Seeley, Kyle Hotz, Dexter Vines, Walden Wong, Danny Miki, David Baron, Allen Passalaqua, and Tom Napolitano give us a bleak look at a world where Sinestro chose not to share the power of the White Lantern light and essentially everything fell to Nekron and the Black Lanterns. It’s a very unique take on the zombie apocalypse on its own, made more interesting as a fallen Sinestro, Lobo, and Dove try to save this universe. The art from Hotz, Vines, Wong, Miki, Baron, and Passalaqua is perfect.

| Published by DC Comics

Trees: Three Fates #3 continues to build up the weird atmosphere from last issue, then turns around and focuses on more of the gritty aspects of Oleg, Mik, and Nina. Gorgeous artwork all throughout from Jason Howard and Dee Cunniffe.

| Published by Image

Triage #3 shifts to Commander Marco’s reality as the group flee from the Hunter. I really like what Phillip Sevy and Frank Cvetkovic have been doing with this story. Great high concept, but the interpersonal relationships are where it’s really at.

| Published by Dark Horse

Usagi Yojimbo #6 is a beautiful updating and embellishment of the very first story of Usagi from Albedo by Stan Sakai and Tom Luth. This single issue story really captures the spirit and magic of all of Sakai’s stories, wonderfully portraying his mix of action and folklore.

| Published by IDW

Vampirella/Red Sonja #3 explores more of what the Russians were doing in regards to Drakulon and more. More very nice humour from Jordie Bellaire in the interactions between Vampirella and Sonja.

| Published by Dynamite

Wonder Woman #82 begins “The Wild Hunt” from the new creative team of Steve Orlando, Kieran McKeown, Scott Hanna, Romulo Fajardo Jr., and Pat Brosseau. It very much continues on from the plot threads and elements of the previous run, continuing to build on the current conflict between Wonder Woman and Cheetah.

| Published by DC Comics

X-Men #2 is pretty damn great, going back to the big and wild ideas bringing new elements into the X-universe, all while Cyclops gives some of the strangest parenting. Jonathan Hickman, Leinil Francis Yu, Garry Alanguilan, Sunny Gho, and Clayton Cowles give us a new mystery with the arrival of Arakko and the first of -|A|-’s missing original horsemen.

| Published by Marvel

Other Highlights: Age of Conan: Valeria #4, Agents of Atlas #4, Catwoman #17, Doctor Who: The Thirteenth Doctor Holiday Special #1, The Dollhouse Family #1, Elvira: Mistress of the Dark #10, Firefly: The Sting, Future Foundation #4, Ghosted in LA #5, GI Joe: A Real American Hero #268, Girl on Film, Go Go Power Rangers #25, Harley Quinn & Poison Ivy #3, History of the Marvel Universe #5, Marvel Action: Spider-Man #11, Midnight Vista #3, Moonshine #13, Runaways #27, RWBY (print) #2, RWBY (digital) #6, Savage Sword of Conan #11, Star Wars #74, Star Wars: Jedi - Fallen Order: Dark Temple #4, Star Wars: Target Vader #5, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #50

Recommended Collections: Babyteeth - Volume 3, Dark Red - Volume 1, Fallen World, GLOW - Volume 1: Versus the Star Primas, Justice League - Volume 4: The Sixth Dimension, Savage Avengers - Volume 1: City of Sickles, Star Wars: Age of Resistance - Heroes, Star Wars Adventures - Volume 7: Pomp and Circumstance, Wonder Twins - Volume 1: Activate

d. emerson eddy can hear the scratching at the walls of reality.

#This Week in Comics