#AND DAVID YOST CAME BACK?

[hashtag-anthems]

I’m being mentally ill about power rangers again

#hashtag rambles #rewatched the reboot movie and then found out there was a 30th anniversary Netflix special #AND DAVID YOST CAME BACK? #I sobbed at the end #it was a beautiful tribute to thuy trang #gotta find out where lightspeed rescue is streamable so I can continue my big Watch All Of Power Rangers #bc I left off with power rangers in space I think…? #I’ll figure it out

[bagofbonesmp3]

Hey it's the death and resurrection anon again, I've never really thought about that in the way you described it, it's a very interesting angle to look at it, you've convinced me to give it another shot, do you have any recommendations? My tolerance level for weird and bizarre things is pretty high so don't worry bout alienating me. Go nuts (PS:I forgot to mention that I found your blog through the Bi Anka cover, so... yeah)

I'm a marvel girl mostly, so here are my easy-to-get-into books:

hawkeye (2012) by matt fraction and david aja: street level superhero shenanigans. deals with depression, loneliness and morality.

moon knight (2014) by warren ellis and declan shalvey : street level superhero as well but. moon knight style. ambiguous narrator. violence. involvement with the community

black widow: the name of the rose (2010) by marjorie liu and daniel acuña: one of the greatest comic books of all time. spy thriller. trauma, crimes of the past, forgiving oneself and the world.

daredevil (2011) by mark waid and paolo rivera: vigilante superhero with legal drama! fuma aventures ! kooky villains ! and the way depression is a constant even when your life turns around. but you have to rely on the people you love.

runaways (2003) by brian k vaughn and adrian alphona: unconventional teenage superheros! because they don't want to be superheros. their parents are villains. and they have to grapple with their actions and how they get passed down.

ultimate spider-man (2011) by brian michael bendis and sarah pichelli: miles. morales. origin story.

x-23 (2005) by christopher yost and craig kyle: government experiments with a child since birth. the true wolverine. trauma, the exploration of the self when humanity has been stripped away. difficult mother daughter dynamics

all-new guardians of the galaxy (2017) by gerry duggan and kuden: they're in space and doing funky stuff. space adventure kinda thing

ms. marvel (2014) by g. willow wilson and adrian alphona: coming of age story! fun and fresh.

thor (2014) by jason aaron and russell dauterman: oh Jane Foster we're really in it now...

gambit (2012) by james asmus and clay mann: crime story! heists! this man is bisexual

storm (2014) by greg pak and victor ibañez: demistifying a goddess. dealing with grief and new responsbilities, but at the same time giving yourself time and space to be yourself.

and if we're talking resurrection stories.... Elektra is one of my favorite characters of all time (she's my header hehe), and has my favorite resurrection storyline (her whole shtick is died unfairly and came back) here's a reading order for her. i recommend reading elektra and wolverine: the redeemer. it's very beautiful, a semi-novel, and very easy to get into. hope this helped you!

#also the bi gambit and rogue post wkfkekkckekfiekfkek THANK YOU

[bigskydreaming]

What are your favorite x-men comics?

Hmm, currently, or just in general, like in terms of past writer runs, etc? Because currently I'd say Vita Ayala's New Mutants and Al Ewing's X-Men Red, with wary interest in Kieron Gillen's Immortal X-Men and Si Spurrier's Legion of X. And the extremely reluctant intention of at least trying Duggan's X-Men once Bobby joins the team because well. I make terrible choices.

If in terms of past writer runs, let me know if that was your real ask cuz I'll have to think about that one, hmm. Definitely any and all X-books by Marjorie M. Liu, particularly her Astonishing X-Men run (or was she on Amazing X-Men? I can't remember. It was one of the A books).

Also Mike Carey's X-Men run, but no thank you to his time on X-Men Legacy (he was like Xavier is Valid, Actually, and I was like IS HE THO? And then I clocked out).

Various 90s X-Men runs, but I honestly don't remember which writers or issues because writer runs weren't as clearly defined as they tend to be these days and they used to skip back and forth between writers every couple issues on some books.....(you wouldn't believe how many times I've mistakenly thought I liked a Scott Lobdell written issue of Uncanny X-Men or Generation-X only to realize oh thank god, I just assumed based on him having written the issues before and after the ones I liked but no, actually the issue I liked was written by Jay Faerber or Howard Mackie LOLOL)....

Ironically, despite being a lifelong X-Men fan, I really don't care for Chris Claremont that much? Like, I recognize his contributions to the franchise and many of my fave characters, he's written some of my favorite stories, and he has an aptitude for character creation that means some of my fave obscure mutants are wholly due to him....but he's also got major issues in a lot of his writing that makes his runs overall a very complicated thing for me. Like, I have a ton of nostalgia for the Outback era because I love that line-up so damn much, but like....most of the individual issues of the Outback era I'm like damn, I hate them so much HOW is it I came to love this line-up so much??

Hmm, what else. I LOVE Louise Simonson's original X-Factor run (even though I also fall firmly into the camp of thinking Madelyne Pryor Deserved Better and like, Simonson is kiiiiiinda the reason Madelyne's character got assassinated as vigorously as she was in the 80s).....I'm also really partial to Weir and DeFillipis' New Mutants/Academy X runs overall, and have a love/hate relationship with Yost and Kyle's takeover of that part of the franchise afterwards because like....they simultaneously trashed a lot of my faves from that while doing the character work that made the few survivors of that era actually take off and gain some longevity, and given the entire direction of the franchise around that time was heavily shaped by editorial, its really hard to know what character decisions (and deaths) were directly due to them and which were just...mandated by editorial.

There's definitely a lot of other runs and titles I like mixed in there, but most of them are from the pre-Morrison days and books.....after Morrison came Austen and Milligan and LOL no thank you, and after THAT came Decimation, and Liu and Carey were pretty much the only writers who did ANYTHING I like after that point, prior to the current era.

On the flip side of things, my unholy trinity of X-writers I can't stand are Peter David, Rick Remender and Bendis. With honorable mentions to Cullen Bunn and Dennis Hopeless. Oh and I just hate Whedon and All His Works in general, so there's that too I guess.

[fancoloredglasses]

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (live action anime)

[All images are owned by Saban Entertainment and Toei Company Ltd. Please don’t sue me]

(Thanks to Power Rangers Official)

It’s hard to believe that it’s been over 30 years since this show came out. I’ll admit, I thought it was dumb then and not much has changed my opinion, but Saban is still releasing new Power Rangers shows, with the final installment based on the original series released last year and a reboot scheduled for next year!

Much like with most anime shown in the US, Power Rangers used footage from a Japanese show (in this case Super Sentai), removed any Japanese cultural imagery, then re-formatted and re-dubbed it. However, in this case they also used original footage filmed in the U.S. and spliced it in.

The Earth is threatened by the evil Rita Repulsa and her horde that have been trapped in what’s best described as a “space dumpster” for 10,000 years. Her first act upon gaining her freedom is to make plans to conquer the nearest inhabited planet (three guesses which one)

Fortunately for Earth, the sage known as Zordon learns or Rita’s escape and recruits 5 teenagers from Angel Grove, California as the planet’s defenders. He gives them enhanced abilities and snazzy faceless suits to battle Rita’s forces, christening them…

…the Power Rangers!

Jason Scott, the Red Ranger, is the leader of the team. The other Rangers are…

Billy Cranston, the Blue Ranger

Kimberly Hart, the Pink Ranger (Oh, cute! The girl is the Pink one! Very clever, guys!)

Zack Taylor is the Black…SERIOUSLY?! The BLACK Ranger? Are you going to make the Yellow Ranger an Asian?

OH, COME ON! Yes, Trini Kwan is the Yellow Ranger

Whenever Rita sends her army of minions to invade (and they ALWAYS start their invasion in Angel Grove for some reason), the Power Rangers suit up and get ready for action!

(Thanks to RANGERVERSE)

Of course, once the Power Rangers are on the scene, Rita sends in a giant monster. However, part of the Power Rangers’ abilities include telepathic command of giant robots (known as “Zords”) that resemble the prehistoric creatures they gain their powers from. Much like with the Lion Force, individually they’re not much of a match for the monster until…

(Thanks to tallarun2005)

…they join forces to form the Megazord, then Save the Day.

Of course, being teenagers, they have typical teenager stuff to deal with, including comic relief bullies.

Meet Skull and Bulk, who are often causing mischief that almost always blows up in their faces.

Of course, after a season of getting beaten by five teenagers, Rita’s superior Lord Zed stuffed her back in the dumpster and took over. The last thing Rita did before getting trashed was make her own Ranger…

Tommy Oliver

AKA the Green Ranger, commanding the Dragonzord. Tommy eventually shook Rita’s control and joined the Power Rangers. However, Zedd took away his powers, so Zordon gave him new powers and christened him…

…the White Ranger, commanding the White Tigerzord.

The series lasted three seasons, but has had several movies and spinoffs (Of course, with new Rangers as actors decided to move on, with David Yost (who played Tommy) being the last of the original five to leave in 1996. Jason David Frank, who played Tommy, left in 1997 but made sporadic appearances until 2022)

If you would like to see the series, it’s available on PlutoTV or behind your favorite paywall.

If you would like to see an episode reviewed, let me know!

#mighty morphin power rangers #Fan Colored Glases

[sethshead]

"They only paid David J. Fielding $150 for playing Zordon in 1993 Power Rangers.

"Stories and experiences of people involved in the Hollywood world and David J continue to come to light. Fielding shared that he only showed up to work one day on the Power Rangers recording set, they recorded different shots of his face and expressions and received $150 dollars and never again they called him back, Zordon came out on every episode of Power Rangers from 1993 and now with this we give us an idea of the current Strike of Actors union and artificial intelligence.

"✍🏻 🏻: David Yost on Twitter (1993) Blue Power Ranger"

h/t Chase Dudley

[glapplebloom]

((Early Schedule means earlier releases of this.))

I am so glad the first non-Zord Power Ranger fight was Jason. While everyone says Tommy is their favorite Ranger, mine was always Jason. I like Red, he was the first Karate Guy and he was a great leader. With the added benefit of him showing up in the upcoming Power Ranger Team Up for Beast Morphers, he was a shoe in to represent the Rangers against the Turtles.

With the upcoming Crossover between MLP and Transformers in the comics, you could look at the two Megaman/Sonic Crossovers since one of the writers for that will be working on it. But the current Crossover with TMNT and Power Rangers is a good example of what to expect. So many fun interactions.

One of the more questionable things is how Jason scales to other Rangers. Specifically Rocky with the Ninja Morphin Powers. A lot of people think they don’t because its a different set of powers that in theory would be more powerful than the originals. But this is what Ninjor said...

You now possess the power of ninja deep in your souls. Come now and learn of your new gifts. Behold the power of grace and beauty of your new Ninja Zords. These zords have drivin by the forces of the ninja and it fuse with light and strength. There are far superior to the zords of the past. Well, before your power came from the brute strength of the dinosaurs. Now it comes from the swift intelligent cutting of the ninja. Your new power coins come with new more advanced powers.

Those new advanced powers? They’re the Ninja Forms. These predate the Civilian Powers later Rangers would have. While useful to fight off the Tengu Warriors (and Rito), they usually morph when it comes to fighting the Monster of the day. And outside the Metallic Armor (an add-on by Zordon and Alpha), there was nothing different from their original Dino Ranger Powers. Same costume. Same weapons. Just an in-between state that allows them to defeat the stronger mooks. All this plus the various team ups where Jason can stand alongside other later Rangers (including the supposed superior Zeo), Jason should likely scale to Red Ninja Morphin Rocky.

Ever wondered how Jason got his Dino Coin back? Boom’s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers 2018 Annual explains it. Rocky kept it around like Adam did in Space. Only instead of keeping it, he decided to give it back to Jason after he was done being the Gold Ranger. Thus the later appearances of them have Jason with Dino Morphin and Rocky with Ninja Morphin (yes, he does use the Ninja Morphin Powers in his team up).

Now how could I tell he’s using Ninja Morphin and not Dino Morphin? When Rocky does his fighting stance, he does an Ape Pose. His animal was the Ape. So in between Forever Red and Ninja Steel, they fixed up his old coin so he can once again be the Red Ninja Morphin Ranger.

Did you know the Power Blasters could destroy the Megazord and Dragonzord? That’s because before the Zords got upgraded to be Thunder, their Power Weapons were upgraded. Back against the Might Morphin Mutants, when it came to hand to hand they were outmatched. But after they upgraded they one upped them before Rita made them grow. And when Pirantishead took control of them, they threatened to destroy the zords before turning it against Pirantishead.

Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger (Unofficial Sentai Akibaranger) had an episode known as Delusional Imports. In it, their villain made it so people believed Power Rangers came before Sentai. Got to say it was kind of unflattering, but it was pretty funny. And it does show their passion for the original Sentai that Power Rangers were based on.

After the Research was done, what showed up in my recommendations was Austin St. John talking about how he got the role of Jason. It is an entertaining story. On that channel, you can also see stories of his first live appearance, being the Gold Ranger, a touching story about Thuy Trang (Trini the Yellow Ranger), and a trailer about his story about Forever Red.

While we were working on Jason/Leonardo, the Death Battle Curse struck. Outside the announcement of the Power Rangers/TMNT Crossover comic, David Yost (Billy the Blue Ranger) made an appearance for the Toys that Made Us Season 3 for Power Rangers. This is the first Power Rangers related thing I’ve seen him in since leaving Zeo. Though before that he also appeared in Power Rangers Anti Bullying.

To fill in the Turtles side: my favorite Turtle is Raphael. As a kid it was Mikey but seeing the 4Kids Turtles made me enjoy Ralph. It continued with the 2012 Turtles and I am glad to see Ralph in the leader role in Rise of the TMNT. Sadly, I don’t follow that series and now that its on Nicktoons, the chances of a third seasons are low.

And I regret not following it SO BADLY because I just found out about Foot Recruit. Its like if Lord Hater and Commander Peepers had a kid. And voiced by Zelda Williams? If she was in episode 1 I would have been following it from the start. Here is the video that made me love her.

One more Ranger Tidbit: in the comics instead of going to a Peace Conference, the three rangers were chosen by the Morphin Grid to be Omega Rangers. I missed this fight with Lord Zell, but as you can tell there was still plenty for Jason.

#other

[bongaboi]

Kansas City Chiefs: Super Bowl LIV Champions

LEN DAWSON FORMER CHIEF, HALL OF FAMER

“The excitement you’ve brought to this city reminds me of that magical season when we won the Super Bowl 50 years ago. It’s now your turn to bring the trophy home.” — Dawson, the Chiefs’ Super Bowl IV MVP and Hall of Famer, via KMBC-TV in a message to this year’s team

GEORGE BRETT ROYALS LEGEND, HALL OF FAMER

When we called him, he was running home to pick up his iPad so he could watch Chiefs highlights at the gym. “Well, what DON’T you like about the Chiefs? I watched the Chiefs’ comeback against the Texans the other day. Then I went home and I watched the Royals’ comeback in Game 4 (against the Astros in the 2015 American League playoffs). I’m going, how could this happen? To the same city, against the same city?”

MELISSA ETHERIDGE SINGER-SONGWRITER

This rock icon from Leavenworth has sung the national anthem at Arrowhead. How many people can say that?: “Last Sunday (Jan. 12, vs. Houston), when (Daniel) Sorensen made that tackle on the fake punt, my eyes welled up with tears because I felt it: that heart, that soul, that, ‘We are doing this for KC’ feel. It’s hard to describe, but it’s why I have been a fan since the 1970 Super Bowl.”

Join the conversation on Twitter Go to Twitter and tell us what you love about the Chiefs. We may use it in an upcoming story.

#MyChiefsLove DAVID KOECHNER ACTOR, COMEDIAN

Koechner, a native of Tipton, Missouri, who attended Mizzou, has an allegiance to the Chiefs that goes back to Christmas 1971 and their double-overtime playoff loss to the Dolphins. “Which we all know didn’t turn out right. Because the Dolphins cheated. A lot of people don’t know that,” he said with a laugh during a recent Facebook Live session with The Star. Count him among those enamored with this season’s team: “Wow, it just keeps getting better. You know, we had that little hitch in the middle of the season, but that’s the right time to have it. … You can’t help but think we’re in great shape.”

TECH N9NE RAPPER, ENTREPRENEUR

The rapper, producer and entrepreneur who’s still based in Kansas City, and whose lyrics often include nods to the city or things related to the region says, “What I love about our players is they are FEARLESS! Executing plays as if it were their very last game on Earth ... at least it feels that way to me!”

WENDY GUILLIES PRESIDENT/CEO, KAUFFMAN FOUNDATION

“In so many ways, this team reminds me of the 2015 Royals. It feels like their time — they have a will that’s undeniable and they find ways to win. They are quintessential Kansas City: full of heart.”

NED YOST FORMER ROYALS MANAGER

“I’m sitting here in Georgia, but Andy Reid is my coach, Patrick Mahomes is my quarterback, (Travis) Kelce’s my tight end.” He says this season’s Chiefs are like the 2015 World Series champion Royals because of how close they came the season before: “The experience gained is invaluable. And now that they’ve been there, they understand what it’s like. And once you get a little taste of it, it’s like a mountain lion with blood: Once you get a little taste, nothing’s going to stop you.”

BOBBY BELL FORMER CHIEF, HALL OF FAMER

Bell, the first Chiefs player to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, helped the club to a pair of Super Bowls, including their victory 50 years ago in Super Bowl IV. “What I love is they’re winning games, big games. ... They’ve got a lot of character. We haven’t seen anything like this in how many years?”

DONNA MAIZE KCFD CHIEF

“Besides that exuberant feeling of community you get walking into Arrowhead Stadium on game day, what I really love about the Kansas City Chiefs is the excellent teamwork utilizing everyone’s strengths to achieve a common goal, which embodies what KCFD excels at each and every day.”

ALBERT PUJOLS MLB ALL-STAR

Pujols, the three-time National League Most Valuable Player and two-time World Series champion who played high school baseball at Fort Osage in Independence, said: “I love the determination from their core of young players and veterans. It seems like they only became hungrier after last year’s AFC Championship Game.”

BILL SELF KU HOOPS COACH

“I think they’re ... what did they call the Rams back in the day? The Greatest Show on Turf? And this may be the Greatest Show on Grass. I’m just amazed with how many weapons and how fast ... it doesn’t matter who you put out there, it seems like they can all make people miss, and then you’ve got the most talented guy in the league orchestrating it all. I think they’re so fun to watch. But not being a football expert, I think defensively is where we’ve gotten so much better. ... We’re flying around, and even if people score points, the defense has to feel good that, ‘Hey, if we only give up 21, it’s going to be a good day for us.’”

TOM WATSON GOLF LEGEND

The winner of eight major golf tournaments, including two Masters championships, is a lifelong Chiefs fan who wants to see them “make amends for Super Bowl I against Green Bay. I love the intensity and fun with which they play. To see their joy and passion in playing a game. You can see it in how the team plays, how the players respond to each other ... that’s what I love about the Chiefs.”

TRAI BYERS ACTOR

Star of the TV drama Empire and the movie Selma and native of Kansas City, Kansas: “The grit, the fight and the next-man-up mentality is exactly how we ended up here! And EXACTLY why the road to the Super Bowl goes through the world’s loudest stadium with the world’s best fans. LETS GO CHIEFS.”

ROGER MARSHALL U.S. REPRESENTATIVE, R-KANSAS

“They’re just so exciting. I mean, I’ve got to tell you, in my conversation with the President — we had an hour together — I bet we spent 10 minutes talking about the Chiefs and just what an exciting game that (win over Houston) was. You know, I’ve got a buddy there in Kansas City, a pledge brother, we’ve been waiting now for 50 years to go to a Super Bowl. I grew up with Len Dawson and Otis Taylor and Jim Lynch and Willie Lanier and Bobby Bell and Ed Podolak. We watched some great teams and so we’ve been waiting anxiously for this team.”

ROB RIGGLE ACTOR, COMEDIAN

Riggle, who attended Shawnee Mission South High and KU, has been obsessive for as long as he can remember about the Chiefs and Royals, once telling The Star that their fates and his are entwined. “I love this year’s team,” he said in a recent Facebook Live session with The Star. He said Patrick Mahomes changes everything. “I definitely think he creates things. Not only like a broken play, but whatever he sees out there, he’s always making it up. A lot of it, you have a plan, but the defense has a vote in that plan. A lot of times it gets screwed up, and so you have to adjust. And he is one of the best at adjusting on the fly, and he’s got all the physical skills to make that happen. Yeah, I’d say he’s an improv genius.”

TONY GONZALEZ FORMER CHIEF, HALL OF FAMER

Gonzalez, the NFL’s most prolific receiving tight end ever and 2019 inductee into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, spent 1997-2008 with the Chiefs. “With Patrick Mahomes, I love the ad-libs,” said Gonzalez, now an NFL studio analyst for Fox. “The magic in anything is in the ad-libs. When there’s a breakdown and things go awry, that’s what gets us out of our seats. When the pocket breaks down, guys get open, Tyreek Hill over the top, it’s so much fun to watch.”

CLAIRE MCCASKILL FORMER SENATOR, NOW TV ANALYST

The former Democratic senator from Missouri puts it like this: “Well, how can anyone not love this team? Last week showed the country why the Kingdom is having so much fun. And while Mahomes is breathtaking, Reid’s creativity and a much-improved defense is our ticket to Miami.”

KEVIN HARLAN VETERAN BROADCASTER

A resident of Mission Hills, Kansas, Harlan punctuated his calls with his trademark “Oh, baby, what a play!’’ as radio voice of the Chiefs from 1985-93. He’s now an NFL play-by-play man for CBS Sports. “What I like about the Chiefs is how they continue to compete every season,” Harlan said. “That is such a difficult thing to do in the NFL. … I love how they’re continually good, because we know that for so many years, there wasn’t hope and the level of their play was not close to this. Every year now, they’re always in the conversation, and that’s what I like best.”

HEIDI GARDNER ‘SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE’

Says the SNL star and Kansas City native: “What I love about the Chiefs is they’ve got each other’s backs always. On the field and off the field, they’re brothers. They’re all accountable and step up when called. It’s not offense, defense, coaches, all separate. It’s one big family. And I love that.”

JOE CARTER FORMER MAJOR-LEAGUER

Carter, who hit the walk-off home run that won the 1993 World Series for the Toronto Blue Jays, has made his home in Leawood since the end of his baseball career. “I see 53 guys having fun who love one another. It’s a big family, and that makes it fun to come to work. It starts with Coach Reid and goes to Mahomes and goes down. When you’ve got a special guy like Mahomes leading the charge … you’re going to be happy for the next 15 to 20 years.”

MITCH HOLTHUS VOICE OF THE CHIEFS

“Resiliency,” said Holthus, radio voice of the Chiefs since 1994. “They embody the spirit of what makes up the people of the Chiefs Kingdom. They reflect this region. Hard-working. Tough. On task. Take nothing for granted. They’re a neat group.”

KATHY NELSON KANSAS CITY SPORTS COMMISSION

Says the president and CEO of the Kansas City Sports Commission (and championship team parade planner): “There is so much energy and excitement around the city! Driving home at night has become an emotional high to see so many buildings lit up in red. And wearing red every day of the week has become an anticipated challenge. How can you not love these guys? Sundays can’t come soon enough right now. It’s becoming easier to visualize and plan another parade, this time in red.”

CARL PETERSON FORMER CHIEFS GM

Peterson, the Chiefs’ president and general manager from 1989 to 2008, revived a struggling and stagnant franchise by turning the team into an annual playoff contender and creating the frenzy in the parking lots and seats that continues today at Arrowhead. “I love their never-say-die attitude. They never think they’re out of a game and have proven it a number of times, and the Houston game proved it big-time. A great deal has to start with the quarterback. He’s exceptional.”

PAT WARREN KANSAS SPEEDWAY

Warren is president of a track that plays host to a NASCAR playoff race every year, so he knows something about postseason pressure. “This team has a confidence in itself unlike anything I’ve seen in professional sports. They always believe they can win. It’s a culture that exists in a team, and it’s a culture that breeds winning and is cool to see. When they were down 24-0 (vs. Houston), the attitude was not defeatist. It was, ‘How are we going to get back in this thing?’”

RICK SUTCLIFFE FORMER MAJOR-LEAGUER

Sutcliffe, of Independence, was the National League Cy Young Award-winner in 1984 with the Chicago Cubs. He attended Chiefs games with his grandfather and has established relationships with Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce. “I love them more as people than even as players,” Sutcliffe said. “That’s so important to a community. That’s the reason you see so much red in Kansas City. You fall in love with them even more once you get to meet them.”

QUINTON LUCAS MAYOR OF KCMO

Weeks after his inauguration last year, “Q” stood atop City Hall and envisioned a championship parade for the team he has cherished forever: “What’s not to love about this team? I mean, you look at the excitement, the happiness they have to be around each other, the fact that they have a young quarterback who can come back from 24 down. … This is the sort of thing you want to follow. It’s infectious. There’s joy every day. They hang out together. They care about Kansas City.”

DICK VERMEIL FORMER CHIEFS COACH

The former Eagles, Rams and Chiefs coach who keeps as busy as ever with his Vermeil Wines operation in California, still follows the Chiefs closely and loves this group for several reasons. His email on the topic: “# 1, I love the coaching job Andy (Reid) & his staff have done! #2, I love how they get the ball down field in the passing game. # 3: I love the improvement in the defense coordinated by Steve (Spagnuolo) & staff! Go Chiefs!”

KEVIN WILLMOTT WRITER, KU PROFESSOR

Kevin Willmott, a professor of film and media studies at the University of Kansas who won an Oscar for co-writing “BlacKkKlansman”: “Have been a fan since fifth grade when I got a Chiefs vs. Vikings electric football game of their Super Bowl win for Christmas. Exciting time for Kansas City.”

TRENT GREEN FORMER CHIEFS QB

Green, the Chiefs quarterback during 2001-06, now serves as the club’s preseason television analyst and is a commentator for CBS television and radio. “The excitement they bring is infectious. The offense has been that way for a couple of years, but the defense has brought a lot of energy. The additions of Frank Clark and Tyrann Mathieu … there’s a whole new attitude on that side of the ball.”

DAYTON MOORE KC ROYALS GM

“I mean, I’m a fan like everybody else and like to see action on the field and athletes playing against one another. But from my viewpoint across the street, I think it begins and ends with the great leadership that they have in their organization. That speaks to the consistency, and that’s what I admire about it. Regardless of what happens going forward — because what happens on the field, as we all know, is very unpredictable at the professional level — the steady, quality leadership is something that I notice and pay attention to.”

LIDIA BASTIANICH CHEF, AUTHOR

The proprietor of Lidia’s Kansas City says: “The Chiefs are amazing to watch and cheer for. It is extraordinary how the team energized the city and makes Kansas City rally together. The comeback by Patrick Mahomes (against Houston in the Chiefs’ playoff opener) shows that if you put your mind to something, you can do anything. I am so proud that Lidia’s is a part of Kansas City’s fiber and a cheerleader for the longstanding tradition of the Chiefs.”

BILL HANCOCK COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF DIRECTOR

Says Hancock, who calls Prairie Village, Kansas, home: “What I love the most is the balance between the offense and the defense. They are very good on both sides of the ball, and I always enjoy that in a football team. You don’t see it very often.”

JAN STENERUD FORMER CHIEF, HALL OF FAMER

Stenerud, the first pure kicker inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, made all three of his field-goal attempts in the Chiefs’ victory over Minnesota in Super Bowl IV. “In addition to their tremendous talent is the impression I have of the whole team, that they’re nice young men. I like the way they represent the organization. Every time you see someone interviewed, I’m impressed with the way they handle themselves. I’m proud of them.”

CHRIS GOODE FOUNDER/OWNER OF RUBY JEAN’S JUICERY

“As a lifelong Kansas Citian, the biggest change I’ve seen is the depth of camaraderie the players have amongst each other. There’s this sense of family that we have in Kansas City and I believe the Hunt family, along with coach Andy Reid, have found a nucleus of guys that not only mesh on the field, but off as well. You can see them genuinely supporting each other’s community endeavors and lifting each other up when there’s a dropped ball, or when we’re down. That energy is reflective of what is so special about Kansas City and makes me admire this Chiefs squad. It reinforces the sense of pride I feel to call KC home.”

VLATKO ANDONOVSKI U.S. WOMEN’S NATIONAL TEAM SOCCER COACH

“The excitement around the Chiefs in Kansas City is just awesome. We have a great community feeling in Kansas City and the Chiefs bring everyone even closer together, so for them to be having such a successful season is fun for everyone. I really love how entertaining they are and how they play aggressively, creative and fast. Coach Reid, the assistant coaches and all the players have done a great job and I appreciate how much they want to win for the fans. I know they can get to the Super Bowl and bring a championship back to Kansas City.”

KAY BARNES FORMER KCMO MAYOR

“Remembering the Chiefs’ Super Bowl win 50 years ago, I’m just as excited today about the Chiefs hopefully winning again.”

JOE POSNANSKI AUTHOR, FORMER KC STAR COLUMNIST

“There are so many things to love about these Chiefs, but I think you have to start with Patrick Mahomes. How can you not? What a joyous presence. What a fantastic player. But even that doesn’t quite cover it. I was in Kansas City for so many Chiefs heartbreaks. And the thing that stood out was that the Chiefs simply couldn’t find their own quarterback. Trent Green was a fine player, but he had bounced around for a few years. Elvis Grbac — we all remember that. Rich Gannon came and went. Joe Montana stopped by for a time after already becoming a legend. You couldn’t help but wonder: When would the Chiefs ever have another quarterback who owned the town the way Len Dawson did? And this kid came along and he played fearlessly and the Chiefs are back in the Super Bowl. He’s the screensaver on our oldest daughter’s phone. I don’t know what else you need to say.”

GEORGE TOMA GROUNDSKEEPING GURU

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Man has served as a groundskeeper for all 53 Super Bowls, and No. 54 falls on Feb. 2, his 91st birthday. The longtime groundskeeper for the Chiefs and Royals was selected as head groundskeeper for Super Bowl I after then-NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle admired the pristine green grass at KC’s old Municipal Stadium. “This team has a hell of a coach in Andy Reid. I took care of his practice fields in Jacksonville for the Super Bowl when he was the Eagles’ coach, and he was so gracious and I think the world of him.”

CHRISTIAN OKOYE FORMER CHIEF

The Nigerian Nightmare led the NFL in rushing with 1,480 yards in 1989, when the Chiefs’ offense was built on a power-run game. “We were exciting when I played, but it’s totally different now with Mahomes and how he plays,” said Okoye, who runs the California Sports Hall of Fame, which he founded in Ontario. “What I love about them is not giving up. When they were 24 down, and fans were going home, I looked at the players, and they didn’t flinch. I saw Mahomes talking to his teammates, and I told the people I was with, ‘We’re going to win this game.’”

JASON KANDER FORMER MISSOURI SEC. OF STATE

“Like the ’14/’15 Royals, this team feels truly connected to the community and they help people around the world learn more about this awesome town. Plus, watching the Chiefs win takes me back to my childhood growing up in the ’90s. I can almost taste the Velveeta queso.”

MATT BESLER PRO SOCCER STAR

Besler, a Sporting KC and U.S. National Team veteran who attended Blue Valley West High, says this: “Watching the win against Houston as an athlete, with seven of my teammates, I couldn’t help but notice two things in particular about this special Chiefs team. The first was the tremendous enjoyment that every Chiefs player displays on the field. We saw firsthand the passion they have for the sport, the passion they have to compete and the passion they have to represent Kansas City and its amazing fans. The second thing that stood out to me: confidence. They’ve shown it all season long. No matter who they play, where they play or what the score is, this Chiefs team believes it can win. They’re not afraid of anyone.”

HARRIS FAULKNER TELEVISION NEWS ANCHOR

Faulkner, anchor of Fox News Channel’s “Outnumbered Overtime,” spent 1992-2000 as a news anchor at WDAF-TV (Ch. 4) in Kansas City. “Loving the Kansas City Chiefs is first driven by my fascination with sports. ... There are a lot of NFL superstars out there but, through the 50 years leading up to this moment, Kansas City players have carried a banner of passion and talent that fans can be proud of. Glad to count myself among those loving fans this Super Bowl Sunday — GO CHIEFS!”

DAVID COOK MUSICIAN, AMERICAN IDOL WINNER

David Cook has worn, and continues to wear, many hats: musician, American Idol winner. Broadway star. Blue Springs native. And unabashed fan of the Kansas City Chiefs. “I love this team’s resiliency and focus. They remind me of the vibe surrounding the 2015 Royals. No deficit feels too large, and no moment too big.”

WILL SHIELDS FORMER CHIEF, HALL OF FAMER

Shields, the Pro Football Hall of Fame guard, has started more games, 223, than anyone in Chiefs history: “The simple fact is they’re putting up big numbers, they’re winning games, and are electric in what they do. They give you that optimism of saying, ‘We have a chance to get to and win a Super Bowl.’’’

DAVID DASTMALCHIAN ACTOR

Overland Park native and co-star in the Ant-Man movies, Blade Runner 2049 and next year’s The Suicide Squad, which is now filming: “I’ve never thrown a Super Bowl Party before. I’m having preposterous amounts of KC BBQ shipped to an undisclosed location where I’m working on an undisclosed film with a handful of undisclosed individuals. A couple are 49er fans, so they won’t be getting any of my BBQ.”

WILLIE LANIER FORMER CHIEF, HALL OF FAMER

“All of the games that you’ve participated in in your life start trying to give you some answers to an illogical situation,” said the ever-analytical Lanier, an anchor of the Chiefs’ 1969 Super Bowl champion team and Hall of Famer who went on to a distinguished business career. When the Chiefs found themselves in a 24-0 hole against Houston, Lanier considered their plight to be “aberrations of the moment” as he waited to see what it would lead to. The result was testimony to experience and a group dynamic he considers essential in a championship team, like the trust and accountability that buoyed those 1969 Chiefs.

JEFF KRUM PRESIDENT OF BOULEVARD BREWING CO.

“No longer just one-dimensional, this team — like a fine beer — is beautifully balanced. With their spirit, energy and integrity, these Chiefs are easy to cheer for, and we’re proud to have them represent our city.”

BILL SNYDER FORMER K-STATE FOOTBALL COACH

The Wildcats’ coaching legend and College Football Hall of Famer knows the game better than just about anyone else, but the things he’s most struck by in watching these Chiefs start with their MVP quarterback: “Like most, I’m impressed with Patrick and Andy, but I’m also so very impressed with how well their offensive line protects the quarterback and the improvement of the defense. Above all, I appreciate the continuity and teamwork of both players and staff. No true weak links.”

EMANUEL CLEAVER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE, D-MISSOURI

The KC congressman said his three favorite things about this year’s Chiefs team are: “Mahomes’ chemistry with the Legion of Zoom; the luncheons held by our pass-rushers in opponents’ backfields every week; and Mathieu taking the defense to another level and demonstrating his superior football IQ.”

JOSH HAWLEY U.S. SENATOR, R-MISSOURI

“One thing that comes immediately to mind is I just love the creativity and almost the joyful and kind of childlike joy the team plays with. I think Mahomes really sets the tone for that. ... It just reminds me of the best parts of Little League. The sense that you’re out there, you’re loving the game, it’s so much fun. … I don’t want to be quoted as saying I’m comparing Mahomes to a Little League ballplayer, but in just the love of it. It’s just so fun.”

JONATHAN JUSTUS CHEF

Executive chef/owner of the former Justus Drugstore and Black Dirt and future executive chef/owner of Justus Drugstore 2.0. “These guys, at the end of the day, are looking you down, and smiling while licking the barbecue sauce off of their fingers and sayin’ ‘Who’s next?’”

JEAN PETERS BAKER JACKSON COUNTY PROSECUTOR

“The Chiefs stadium is truly a Kansas City experience. It’s not about the coach, any player, or the fans. It’s about the moment. The minutes before the kickoff when we collectively embrace the palpable energy and an unwavering belief that we cannot lose. It’s exciting, unifying, and a little bit scary in a blur of red. But win or lose, it’s our team, our town and our pride.”

KELLY COLE PRESIDENT AND CEO OF HALLS

“This team loves their fans as much as we love them. They are great supporters of Halls, and we appreciate them.”

PAT ROBERTS U.S. SENATOR, R-KANSAS

The senator said his favorite things about this year’s Chiefs team are: “They are a team everybody can cheer for ... whether you’re from Missouri or Kansas, you are a Chiefs fan. It really brings the community together. The Chiefs have completely changed the game this season. With Patrick Mahomes using the no-look pass, the Chiefs have become the Golden State Warriors of the NFL. ... I love seeing my Wildcats find professional success, and No. 13, Byron Pringle, the wide receiver, is a K-State alum.”

MICHAEL MACCAMBRIDGE AUTHOR, HISTORIAN

“What’s so compelling about this year’s Chiefs is that it’s not only about the Magic Unicorn Quarterback and The Legion of Zoom. In 2019, the defense has a clear identity and personality as well, thanks in large part to the man with perhaps the most nicknames in the NFL, Tyrann ‘Honey Badger’ ‘T-5’ ‘Kingdom Landlord’ Mathieu. The road to the AFC Championship Game has been tougher this time around, but this team is more balanced, more battle-tested and more resilient than the Chiefs of 2018. Also, Patrick Mahomes is a year smarter and more experienced, and — this part hasn’t changed — remains more fun to watch than any athlete in the country.” MacCambridge attended the Barstow School and was editorial coordinator of the Chiefs’ Hall of Honor. His books include a biography of Lamar Hunt and “’69 Chiefs: A Team, a Season and the Birth of Modern Kansas City.”

GARY PINKEL FORMER MU FOOTBALL COACH

“There’s a lot of things (to love). … We were shooting ourselves in the foot about every way possible (against Houston) … (then) the leadership came through. When things got really, really tough, they weren’t yelling and screaming at each other. They were encouraging each other. … That’s how you get a chance to get out of it. … (And) when you’ve got Patrick Mahomes, you’re never out of a game. There’s a guy like that in New England.”

BILL JAMES AUTHOR, HISTORIAN, STATISTICIAN

The Holton, Kansas, native and KU alum says: “It is fun for us to be the team that has that guy that you just can’t stop, like Elway or Aaron Rodgers or Brady or whoever … it’s fun that now we have that guy. The thing I enjoy is the creativity of the offense. Andy Reid will always come up with something that you haven’t seen before, and before you can process what he has been doing, he moves on to doing something else entirely. I know that he is responding to something the defense has done, but that’s all over my head: It’s like watching a chess match. I’m thinking one step behind and they’re working two steps ahead. But it’s fun to watch.”

JEREMY DANNER 4 HANDS BREWING CO.

The on-premise specialist/brand ambassador for 4 Hands Brewing Co. enjoys watching the Chiefs achieve success and says he especially appreciates what QB Patrick Mahomes and longtime girlfriend Brittany Matthews do for our furry friends: “I’m a healthy level of obsessed with Patrick and Brittany’s dogs, Steel and Silver. As a pit bull owner and advocate myself, I think their dogs are gorgeous, but beyond that, I appreciate what they do to help them serve as ambassadors for pits and Cane Corsos. Their Instagram feed is super cute!”

CHASE MCANULTY FOUNDER/CEO, CHARLIE HUSTLE

“The best thing about these Chiefs is they represent who we are as a city. They share the same values we do as citizens and embody the heart and spirit this city thrives on. A true team on the field, led by the best organization off of it.”

MICHAEL SMITH CHEF

The chef/co-founder of Farina and Extra Virgin In The Crossroads says: “Patrick Mahomes always gives the Chiefs a chance to win a ballgame. Over the years they’ve never had THE quarterback that could score in a flash from anywhere on the field. There are only a handful of quarterbacks in the NFL who can flip a game and give the fans eternal hope that the team can come from behind and win a game. That feeling and belief will be with Chief fans for the next dozen years.”

GARY WOODLAND PRO GOLFER

The PGA Tour star and University of Kansas grad says: “I love the energy this team brings. Obviously starts with Andy Reid, which it feels like every player wants to play for. Then Mahomes controlling the sideline like a veteran and playing like he’s in the backyard with his buddies is awesome. All brought together with the attitude Mathieu has brought to the defense. It’s exciting to watch.”

DERRICK JOHNSON FORMER CHIEF

Johnson, the Chiefs’ career leader with 1,262 tackles from 2005-17: “I love the confidence they play with. I had some really good years here, but they have taken confidence to the next level. They’ve raised the bar, and the Super Bowl is right in their grasp and it could make their dreams come true.”

CLINT BOWYER NASCAR DRIVER

Bowyer, the NASCAR Cup star from Emporia, Kansas, attends games when they don’t conflict with his racing schedule and was in the stands for the playoff comeback win against Houston. “What do I love about the Chiefs? Here’s a simple answer: All of it. I love it all. I love what they’ve done for the city, what Arrowhead means as a fan, to be able to watch them go to battle every week. I love the quarterback, I love Andy Reid, how far the defense has come. And I love knowing you’re an elite group in the playoffs and knowing the team you root for is the team everyone in these playoffs are worried about.”

JACK SOCK PRO TENNIS STAR

Sock, a two-time Wimbledon and 2018 U.S. Open tennis doubles champion and four-time state champion at Blue Valley North, counts some Chiefs players as friends. “They feel like my NFL family. We have the best fans in the league. I’m all about the CHOP. What’s not to love?”

BUBBA STARLING ROYALS OUTFIELDER

The Gardner, Kansas, native was the No. 5 pick overall in the 2011 baseball draft after starring in both football and baseball at Gardner Edgerton High. “I think they’ve got the potential to go all the way. … I mean, I could see the Chiefs, the next however many years, getting to that point. But it’s like, it doesn’t happen very often, just being in the Super Bowl, and, gosh, that would be sweet to go cheer them on.” One more thing: Starling was picked in elementary school to get to wear the KC Wolf costume. “The most awesome thing I’ve ever done,” he said, laughing.

FRANK BOAL TV/RADIO BROADCASTER

“I’ve been covering this franchise since 1981, I’ve never seen anything quite like this team. They are on the verge of something special and no one deserves it more than the Hunt Family and the Chiefs Kingdom. As Patrick Mahomes said, ‘Let’s do something special.’ How about a ‘sea of red’ flowing through downtown in all of our February splendor?”

COLBY GARRELTS CHEF AND CO-OWNER OF BLUESTEM AND RYE

“The Kansas City Chiefs define our city’s culture by bringing friends and families together to share great food and great memories. When we go to the Super Bowl you will always know where you were and who you were with!”

CROSBY KEMPER III DIRECTOR OF THE INSTITUTE OF MUSEUM AND LIBRARY SCIENCES

The outgoing executive director of the Kansas City Public Library’s reason for loving the Chiefs is short and sweet: “Snatching victory from defeat.”

— Quotes collected by Randy Covitz, Derek Donovan, Pete Grathoff, Vahe Gregorian, Blair Kerkhoff, Allison Kite, Bryan Lowry, Sam Mellinger, Jesse Newell, Jon Niccum, Glenn E. Rice, Jeff Rosen, Joyce Smith and Lynn Worthy

#2020 #nfl #national football league #kansas city chiefs #haifuri #hikari ogasawara

[jrmcwilliam]

The Real Reason the Blue Power Ranger Was Killed Off So Abruptly

The real reason Billy Cranston – The Blue Power Ranger – was killed off the 1990’s epic – Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers

David Yost

The longest running Blue Power Ranger of all time The second longest-running Power Ranger of all time The most memorable hero in my entire life - Billy, played by David Yost

“You know the funny thing about morphin’? You don’t appreciate it until you can’t do it anymore!” – Billy Cranston/David Yost

I’ve spent 25 years of my life, off and on, wondering why Billy, the greatest Blue Ranger and Superhero of all time (in my humbled opinion) left the show so abruptly and why the way they “killed” him off was so out of the blue (no pun intended). Until now, I had no idea why. Which is why technology and the internet have become such an incredible way of learning information and connecting with the entire world.            The story, as I understand it, and as I read more about what happened, makes me so mad inside that it makes me want to turn back time so that he could have continued on his projected trajectory. I’ll let Billy tell you first, in his own words, what happened, and then we will discuss it further.

“Um, I, I walked off set one day, during the middle of lunch, halfway through the day, I just made a decision, I’d been thinking about it for a good week, and the reason that I walked off is because I was called a “fa**ot” one too many times. So, um, I had just heard that several times while working on the show from creators, producers, writers, directors.” -David Yost (Source – David Yost, IMBD) *-I will be sharing the entire IMBD Interview at the end of this piece.

So, let me get this straight. A creative team for one of the most prestigious stand-alone superhero franchises made one of their most talented and devoted cast members walk off the set because they continuously called him a faggot!?            This, to me and a lot of other people, is absolutely flabbergasting. According to David, the creators would pull other members of the cast into a private room to ask about his sexuality. While David hadn’t known it was happening. This is too much. It was 1993. How could it have been so surprising that a cast member was gay to a bunch of artistically inclined producers? Furthermore, why would it have caused them to belittle him about it and isolate him within the team that he worked in? This is what David said,

“And I know that my co-stars were called in a couple of times to different producers’ offices and questioned about my sexuality, which is kind of a humiliating experience to hear that and to find that out.” -David Yost (Source – David Yost, IMBD)

           I cannot believe that this happened during the production of a television show that would go on to teach me and the rest of my generation how to be fair to everyone as individuals, work as a team, respect our planet, help others, and ultimately save the world. This show made me who I am today. What I’m starting to realize is that maybe it was the actors all along that taught me these things. I mean, I must give the writers their due credit, but I will not be about to credit them for ultimately pushing out the best part of the show, in my eyes. Billy was my hero. Billy was the one I inspired to be. Is the one I inspire to be.            When we watch these shows as children, we interact with the shows as if we were in them ourselves. We become friends with the characters, and we aspire to be them. We truly believe that we can be them. We do carry that into adulthood and throughout our lives. We never forget. Never…forget.

I am a gay man. I never even knew that Billy/David was even gay! (though, I don’t believe Billy was a gay character. I’m starting to think otherwise) It didn’t matter to me. I mean, I was seven when Power Rangers came out, but it was only another year of my life before I knew I was gay. If I had known then what I know now, I wouldn’t have continued watching the show and then devoted my time, instead, to fighting a battle worth fighting right along-side my real hero – David Yost.

This is something else David said,

“It’s not that people can’t talk about me and have their opinion about me, but continuing to work in an environment like that is really difficult, and I myself was struggling with who I was or what I was, and to be …made fun of on some level or to be stereotyped or put into a category in sort of saying ‘you’re not’ – basically, I just felt like I was continually being told that I’m not worthy of where I am because I’m a gay person and I’m not supposed to be an actor and you can’t be a superhero.” -David Yost (Source – David Yost, IMBD)

           Let’s let that sink in for a bit. Just replay it in your mind – “I’m not supposed to be an actor and you can’t be a superhero.” This blows my mind. And not in a great way. In a flabbergasted kind-of-way. Can’t be a superhero. Well, if anything, it makes him more of a superhero to me that he would give up his place as a leading Superhero just to be able to tell my generation that it is not okay to allow people to tell you what you can and cannot be just because of who you are, and/or what you are. Because it’s not. It’s not okay. He was, is, and always will be The Superhero in my mind. Billy Cranston, the Blue Power Ranger, will always be my Superhero of choice. Why?            Because he was nerdy and smart. He wasn’t a karate genius. He didn’t have the brick-shit-house body that the other Rangers had. He was exactly who he was and still managed to be an integral part of an incredible team of Superheroes that saved the world. Gay or not – he was the sole reason that the team was able to modernize, communicate, and understand their purpose. So, what in the hell did they mean when they told him that he would never be an actor or a Superhero?

I vividly remember watching this very episode where they killed off Billy Cranston. I gasped. As did my friends. It came out of nowhere. In fact, Billy was to go on for much longer alongside Tommy and Jason. So why would he so suddenly be taken out of the show?            But it was the 90’s. We didn’t have immediate access to news about things like this. This moment broke the kid’s hearts and we were supposed to just sit around and accept it. It was so sad that it wasn’t long after Billy’s demise (David’s demise) that I stopped watching the show. Tommy Oliver was also a leading hero in my life, but it wasn’t enough. I was an aspiring Power Ranger because of Billy. And Billy was never to return. I was heartbroken. And I didn’t even get the courtesy of understanding why.

This story is something I am greatly passionate about. I really hope one day to meet David Yost at a Comic Con. I hope one day to be able to shake his hand and tell him how grateful I am that he helped shape the person I became and continue to grow into. I hope, one day, that kids will get to see their heroes in the way that they are supposed to – just like them.            I hope one day, that these pathetic judgments dissipate into thin air. I really do. I hope one day that we can all move on from these stereotypes and isolations. I really do hope that one day we can all just be free to be ourselves without having to worry about what someone else is thinking about it. Unless we choose to go onto American Idol, there is no need to have people judge you for being who you are.

David Yost will always be in my heart, soul, and mind because he was the one that taught me to always do your best, give it your all, and allow people to come around and realize that you are worthy of being on the team. He taught me that being who I am is worthy of anything I set my mind to. Whether that be an actor, a human or – A Superhero.

As promised, here is the full interview with David Yost via IMBD: (I have copied and pasted it so that it is 100% quoted from him)

 [Being asked on why he left the Power Rangers franchise] That's a good question and it's actually a really serious question for me, so if I cry, I apologize in advance. All that me getting old and going off to some foreign planet or something ... I don't know - I wasn't there for any of that. I don't know anything about it, I've never watched the episodes. Um, I, I walked off set one day, during the middle of lunch, halfway through the day, I just had made a decision, I'd been thinking about it for a good week, and the reason that I walked off is because I was called "f***ot" one too many times. So, um, I had just heard that several times while working on the show from creators, producers, writers, directors. It's not that people can't talk about me and have their opinion about me, but continuing to work in an environment like that is really difficult, and I myself was struggling with who I was or what I was, and to be ... made fun of on some level or to be stereotyped or put into a category in sort of saying 'you're not' - basically, I just felt like I was continually being told that I'm not worthy of where I am because I'm a gay person and I'm not supposed to be an actor and you can't be a superhero. And I know that my costars were called in a couple of times to different producers' offices and questioned about my sexuality, which is kind of a humiliating experience to hear that and to find that out. So there was just a lot of issues; it just felt like a bad marriage. And I could either stay and do the second movie and finish six more months of the show or just - I don't know, I guess I was kind of worried about my life. I was worried that I might take my own life. So in order for me to get a handle on what was going on, I needed to leave when I left. And so that's sort of why I left the show.

Please stop judging people for who they are. Please stop making people feel isolated because they are different from you. Please allow people that could really change your life, be your best friend, and really do some good for the world. Allow it. Because it could be the best thing you ever did.

Remove the negativity and move into the reality of freedom. We all want freedom. We all want to help. We all want to do good. We all want to just be. Just be.

You are beautiful no matter what they say. Live it. Inspire.

Thank you for listening,

Allow this story to help you become a better you.

 JR McWilliam

Credits

 David Yost – for being honest and sharing your story. I am at least one person who will share this story and continue to fight this battle with you – because some battles are necessary and should be fought. But much like the expectation of the Power Rangers, I will not instigate these fights and I won’t use my powers for my own gain.

 IMBD – for the interview. I would never have known this story without it. I have done my absolute best to make sure I didn’t paraphrase.

Google Images – to a multitude of artists and the original photographs from the show Mighty Morphin Power Rangers circa 1993-1996, thank you.

The Artists – thank you for continuing to capture the beauty of the Power Rangers – you are recognized and appreciated.

 Note

*-This has not been approved by David Yost or the creators of the Power Rangers. If I was able to communicate this with them my life would be much different. But I hope I have only stated facts, my opinion to the best of my ability, and done David justice by sharing this story.            -To the creators, producers, and writers of the Power Rangers – please know that I forgive you, you were clearly misinformed. All I can hope is that you go on with your careers and your lives without ever making that same mistake again.

JR McWilliam

#bluepowerranger #blue power ranger #power rangers #powerrangers #mmpr #mighty morphin power rangers #saban #homophobia #billy #billy cranston #davidyost #david yost #bullying #the real story

[newx-menfan]

(I wanted to do a Three Part post about Surge-Noriko Ashida; because much like Julian, Noriko is often heavily criticized by readers. Those two characters tend to be the ones that come under fire the most by fandom…)

Part One: Surge in DeFilippis and Weir

Out of all the New X-Men Surge is probably the most mysterious; because where we get a pretty clear picture of the other X-Kids lives BEFORE becoming a mutant, Nori doesn’t really talk much about her past life…

We know Noriko was born in Japan and was very close to her brother Keitaro. Her powers manifested when she was thirteen and she managed to immigrate on HER OWN from Japan to America, since her father rejected her.

That takes some pretty big balls in my opinion! To immigrate at thirteen, ALONE, to a country that’s both very different in culture and language. Yet, Noriko manages to survive on her own.

Noriko DOES accurately represent homelessness, in the fact that almost 34% of the homeless in the United States are under 24, according to HUD’s 2014 Point in Time Report. 80% of homeless youth (age 12 to 21) use drugs or alcohol as a means to self medicate. (Studies on homelessness CAN be really difficult to do, because homelessness tends to be a temporary circumstance, there’s less push for these kinds of studies in the psychological and sociological communities, and because of the stigma around this issue…) Noriko story also touches on the fact that MANY illegal immigrants come to the United States to escape circumstances such as abuse, poverty, political or economical upheaval in their home country, persecution for their identity, ect…

She ends up stealing and using pills (never specified what they were) to control her powers, by sedating her body enough to control the outbursts of electrical power.

The one attempt to reach out for help by going to Xavier’s goes horribly wrong, when she runs into Julian; who at the time has issues with classism and a prejudice around homelessness. (In Julian’s defense- American culture does cultivate this narrative that the poor are somehow at fault for their own poverty heavily. This ties back into the American Dream being represented as widely attainable and America being represented as ‘not having a class system’. We have essentially gaslit the poor into believing they are at fault for their own poverty, instead of admitting that our social systems are inadequate and structured in a way to promote some groups more than others. This ends up being a learning moment for Julian…).

This experience validates Nori’s beliefs that people will NOT provide any kind of help, that the only person she can rely on is herself; so she decides to do what she knows will work-steal and self medicate with drugs. (It also leads to Julian and Noriko having bad blood for a period of time until the Nimrod battle).

Nori accidentally hits ‘the Grind Stone’ coffee shop owner with an electric bolt when robbing the store, and fearing that if she reports it she will end up imprisoned, (keep in mind Noriko is homeless, most likely an illegal immigrant, a person of color, a drug addict, a mutant, and she was actively committing a crime- so she’s probably right in her assumption that she’s not going to get treated sympathetically at all by the justice system…) so she takes the money and runs.

Josh remembers seeing Noriko asking for help and hanging around the Grind Stone, and puts two and two together. Josh convinces the other students to track down Nori; and when they find her Noriko looses control over her abilities, and the students bring Noriko back to the mansion.

Even pre M-Day; the X-Men aren’t all that sympathetic to Noriko. Beast essentially tells her you can either wear the gauntlets I designed for you or get out, where you’ll essentially be put in jail. The only people Noriko really connects with are Cyclops and Dani Moonstar; I’ll come back to this when talking about Kyle/Yost’s run…

David is the other person who tries to connect with Noriko; and while David MEANS well, there are moments that he does come off a little condescending. While David has absolutely faced racism, David has also grown up in a middle to upper class caring family in Chicago; leaving him somewhat struggling to understand Noriko’s experience with homelessness.

While David IS a really great person, he does sometimes struggle with socialization, empathizing, and accepting that people MAKE MISTAKES . This makes sense, because David looks at things from a more logical than emotional place; David DOESN’T DO gut feelings. It’s why the dream around his powers scares him so much, because LOGICALLY it could happen and David knows he prioritizes knowledge. It’s also why Sofia ends up being co-leader of the New Mutants, because David just isn’t very good with understanding the emotional side of things and needs Sofia to handle that side of leadership.

Noriko chooses to stay at the school and takes responsibility of her actions by working at the Grind Stone. This is a common theme with Noriko; no matter what mistakes she makes, she always takes full responsibility for them. She also slowly becomes friends with her fellow teammates.

Noriko’s role on the team in this book was always secondary; in the fact that she had no interest in being leader. She’s perfectly fine with Wind Dancer and Prodigy taking up that responsibility. Noriko acknowledges that her personality ISN’T a good fit for leadership. (This will become important later).

This makes sense, since Noriko is very independent; she doesn’t like to feel like a burden to others and sees herself as ultimately the only person she can rely on. This is because for a long period of time, that WAS true: Noriko had to rely on herself for all care.The idea of working as a team and supporting each other is an extremely foreign concept for her, because her survival for years relied on focusing on the baser needs (food and shelter over emotional health and building emotional connections) and her being her own support system. Essentially, it’s Maslow’s hierarchy of needs; if you’re Physical needs are unmet or inconsistently there day to day, you’re not going to be as focused on needs around Social, Ego, or Self Actualization.

Noriko HAS a tendency to lash out at others; this is used as a defense mechanism-shun others before they shun you. This comes up every time Nori feels threatened or insecure; she’ll lash out or get defensive at the person SHE VIEWS as attacking her.

One of the big complaints people bring up with Noriko is her interaction with Dust; and yes, Noriko’s views ARE problematic.

But no one is born out of the womb a perfect feminist; because we live in a patriarchal society, we all subconsciously take in problematic views that we may need to deconstruct LATER.

This series was written in the 2000’s, when the Iraq war was in full swing and Islamophobic propaganda permeated the news; one of the favorite narratives was ‘their women are oppressed, our women are fine!’ The fact that DeFilippis and Weir subtly commented on the problems with this narrative, IS pretty DAMN impressive, in my opinion.

The truth is, is many teenagers when starting to learn about feminism, START OUT with problematic views. It’s only when they start to learn more about intersectional feminism, that they start seeing the problems with feminism fixating on western culture being the ‘correct way’ and essentially what’s been labeled as 'White Feminism’ (Feminism from the lens of White, Upper Class, Heterosexual, Cis Gendered Women- often times ignoring other POVs and avoidance in addressing the issues around white privilege). Noriko MAY have internalized a lot of these beliefs.

There’s also a possibility that Noriko had faced harassment while living on the streets on her own; 92% of homeless women reported severe physical and/or sexual violence at some point of their in their lives for example, in a 1997 study. In a survey of homeless youth between ages 13 and 21, 23% of women had experienced sexual victimization on at least one occasion since being on the street, in a 2004 study.

While Sooraya is simply trying to explain her side, this could be bringing up memories for Noriko and an internalized belief that IF something happened, it was somehow her fault. As previously stated; Noriko’s feminism has it’s problems, so internalized victim blaming COULD be part of that.

Nori does kind of apologize in her own way, and while still coming off as crass; does accept that her and Sooyara have different beliefs and that both are valid.

Another complaint lodged at Nori is her reaction to Jay’s suicide; and yes, suicide and mental illness is heavily stigmatized. Nori DOES react badly to his admission, which can have negative affects for the survivor of a suicide attempt.

Nori handled this BADLY, but you can understand why. From Noriko’s point of view- Jay comes from a loving family that accepts him mutation and supports him. While her opinion IS invalidating Jay’s experience around depression and that’s not okay; Jay has things Nori didn’t in her own life (Jay also kinds of invalidates Nori’s experiences as well, by saying things like “You wouldn’t understand”, when Nori herself comes from a background of trauma…). Essentially what is coming up is jealousy.

Noriko and Jay later talk it out, and understand that their reactions in this conversation came from trauma; Nori from being homeless and rejected by her family, and Jay from losing his girlfriend and not being able to cope, and from the stigma that comes from being a survivor of a suicide attempt.

They also notice things disappearing/moving on their own in the school. This turns out to be a dead X-student named Jeffery. Surge bonds with Jeffery, partially because he reminds her of her younger brother and partially because she can relate to the child’s anger at his situation. This is one of the examples that despite Noriko’s tough persona, lies someone deeply hurting inside.

Another example, is her reaction to David’s little sister, Kim. Noriko deeply wants Kim to like her, because Noriko likes David. It’s one of the few times Nori goes OUT OF HER WAY to get someone to like her, and is deeply hurt when she is rejected.

Throughout Noriko’s childhood she has been rejected by her parents and other people she turned to for help. David is the only person to genuinely show concern for her (this will be REALLY important later….)

So while Noriko does HAVE problematic views in this series, a lot of it traces back to Noriko’s history being homeless. Nori is in my opinion, a character who gets unfairly hated on for simply struggling to get close emotionally to others, because she’s been repeatedly hurt in the past…

(I’ll post my sources at the end together, like I did with the post around Julian and disability.)

Next is Part Two: Surge in Kyle and Yost, which will be posted either today or Wednesday!

#Surge #Noriko Ashida #Part One of 'Why Noriko is misunderstood'... #Noriko may look tough #but deep down is a mushy caring center #new x men #Nunzio DeFilippis #Christina Weir #Marvel #academy x #bring back the new x men

[kansascityhappenings]

A team-by-team breakdown of the AL Central clubs at the start of spring training

A team-by-team look at the American League Central entering spring training, including key players each club acquired and lost, and dates of the first workout for pitchers and catchers, and the full squad:

Hunter Dozier #17 of the Kansas City Royals celebrates with Jorge Soler #12 after hitting a solo home run in the eighth inning during the game against the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park on August 11, 2019 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Leon Halip/Getty Images)

Kansas City Royals

Manager: Mike Matheny (first season).

2019: 59-103, fourth place.

Training Town: Surprise, Arizona.

Park: Surprise Stadium.

First Workout: Feb. 12/17.

He’s Here: Manager Mike Matheny, RHP Trevor Rosenthal, RHP Braden Shipley, RHP Greg Holland, 3B Maikel Franco.

He’s Outta Here: Manager Ned Yost, INF Cheslor Cuthbert, RHP Trevor Oaks, RF Jorge Bonifacio.

Going campin’: The biggest moves for the Royals this season came away from the field.

Longtime owner David Glass, who died last month after a long illness, sold the franchise to a group led by Kansas City businessman John Sherman in a deal worth about $1 billion.

News of the sale became public about the time Yost announced his retirement and the Royals hired Matheny, who had been serving in an advisory role with the organization. It will be up to Matheny to continue a massive rebuilding effort that began shortly after the club’s 2015 championship season.

Young players such as SS Adalberto Mondesi, 2B Nicky Lopez, RF Hunter Dozier and OF Bubba Starling have already arrived and gained valuable experience last season, and a wave of pitching prospects could arrive late this year.

Success in 2020 will be measured less by wins than by the progress those players make as they position themselves to contend in 2021 and beyond.

Miguel Sano #22 of the Minnesota Twins turns a double play against the New York Yankees to end the seventh inning in game three of the American League Division Series at Target Field on October 07, 2019 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images)

Minnesota Twins

Manager: Rocco Baldelli (second season).

2019: 101-61, first place, lost to Yankees in Division Series.

Training Town: Fort Myers, Florida.

Park: Hammond Stadium at CenturyLink Sports Complex.

First Workout: Feb. 12/17.

He’s Here: 3B Josh Donaldson, RHP Kenta Maeda, RHP Homer Bailey, RHP Tyler Clippard, C Alex Avila, LHP Rich Hill, RHP Matt Wisler, RHP Jhoulys Chacin, LHP Blaine Hardy.

He’s Outta Here: RHP Brusdar Graterol, RHP Kyle Gibson, 1B C.J. Cron, 2B Jonathan Schoop, C Jason Castro, LHP Martín Pérez, RHP Ryne Harper, RHP Trevor Hildenberger, RHP Sam Dyson.

Going campin’: The high-priced addition of the big-swinging, slick-fielding Donaldson boosted an already deep lineup that produced a major league record 307 home runs last season.

Then came the agreement this week on the pending blockbuster trade with the Red Sox and Dodgers to land Maeda for the middle of the rotation, with Graterol, a 21-year-old flame-thrower, going out in a signal the front office is all in on 2020 on the heels of a breakthrough season.

Maeda or not, spring training will be an important time for starting pitching prospects Randy Dobnak, Devin Smeltzer and Lewis Thorpe, all of whom made their major league debuts last year.

With Michael Pineda serving the remainder of his suspension for taking a banned diuretic until mid-May and Hill recovering from elbow surgery until probably mid-summer, innings will need to be logged by some of the youngsters. Chacin, in camp on a minor league contract, is another candidate.

The position players are all but set, with Miguel Sanó needing to get in a groove with the glove at first base after Donaldson’s arrival pushed him off the opposite corner.

The spotlight will also be on center fielder Byron Buxton and his latest attempt to get healthy following shoulder surgery last September.

There will also be new coaches on Baldelli’s staff for players to get accustomed to, with Mike Bell the new bench coach and Edgar Varela the new hitting coach. Bell replaced Derek Shelton, who became manager of the Pirates. Varela replaced James Rowson, who became the bench coach for the Marlins.

Francisco Lindor #12 of the Cleveland Indians runs out a double during the fifth inning against the Detroit Tigers at Progressive Field on September 19, 2019 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images)

Cleveland Indians

Manager: Terry Francona (seventh season).

2019: 93-69, second place in AL Central.

Training Town: Goodyear, Arizona.

Park: Goodyear Ballpark.

First Workout: Feb. 13/17.

He’s Here: 2B Cesar Hernandez, OF Delino DeShields, RHP Emmanuel Clase, C Sandy Leon.

He’s Outta Here: RHP Corey Kluber, 2B Jason Kipnis, OF Yasiel Puig, RHP Tyler Clippard, INF Mike Freeman, OF Leonys Martin, LHP Tyler Olson, RHP Dan Otero, C Kevin Plawecki, RHP Danny Salazar, RHP Nick Goody.

Going campin’: The Indians missed the playoffs for the first time since 2015 last season as Minnesota dethroned Cleveland as division champion.

The team’s decision to trade Kluber, a two-time Cy Young Award winner, in December to Texas has signaled a major shift for the organization, which will count on young starters like All-Star Game MVP Shane Bieber and Mike Clevinger to fill a huge void at the front of the rotation.

Third baseman Jose Ramirez’s prolonged slump hurt the offense for much of last season, and just when he found his groove, a wrist injury sabotaged his season along with the Indians’ chances of catching the Twins.

Hernandez takes over at second, where Kipnis was a mainstay for nine seasons. The outfield remains unsettled, with Oscar Mercado, who batted .269 in 115 games as a rookie, the only one guaranteed a starting spot. Slugger Franmil Reyes is an option in right, but he’s not exactly a Gold Glover.

All-Star shortstop Francisco Lindor’s future hangs over the team, and his situation will only become more of a distraction as he moves closer to possible free agency after 2021.

Cleveland’s first-half success could determine whether the team rides out the year with him or deals Lindor at the deadline.

Yoan Moncada #10 of the Chicago White Sox, James McCann #33, and Jose Abreu #79 celebrate at the end of their team’s 8-0 win over the Cleveland Indians at Guaranteed Rate Field on September 26, 2019 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Nuccio DiNuzzo/Getty Images)

Chicago White Sox

Manager: Rick Renteria (fourth season).

2019: 72-89, third place.

Training Town: Glendale, Arizona.

Park: Camelback Ranch.

First Workout: Feb. 12/17.

He’s Here: C Yasmani Grandal, LHP Dallas Keuchel, LHP Gio González, 1B-DH Edwin Encarnación, RF Nomar Mazara, RHP Steve Cishek, LF Cheslor Cuthbert.

He’s Outta Here: INF Yolmer Sánchez, C Welington Castillo, RHP Iván Nova.

Going campin’: The White Sox are coming off seven consecutive losing seasons. They haven’t made the playoffs since they lost to Tampa Bay in the 2008 AL Division Series.

But there is reason for optimism heading into spring training.

Free-agent deals for Grandal, Keuchel, González, Encarnación and Cishek strengthened the lineup, rotation and bullpen. Tim Anderson, Yoán Moncada, Eloy Jiménez and José Abreu anchor a deep batting order, and slugging center fielder Luis Robert is one of the favorites for the AL Rookie of the Year award.

If Chicago can sort out the back end of its rotation — Reynaldo López is coming off an inconsistent season, and touted prospects Michael Kopech and Dylan Cease have their own question marks — it could contend for the AL Central title.

Niko Goodrum #28 of the Detroit Tigers celebrates after hitting a home run with teammate Miguel Cabrera #24 during the first inning of the game against the Kansas City Royals at Comerica Park on August 11, 2019 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Leon Halip/Getty Images)

Detroit Tigers

Manager: Ron Gardenhire (third season).

2019: 47-114, fifth place.

Training Town: Lakeland, Florida.

Park: Publix Field at Joker Marchant Stadium.

First Workout: Feb. 12/17.

He’s Here: 2B Jonathan Schoop, RHP Ivan Nova, 1B C.J. Cron, C Austin Romine, C Eric Haase, RHP Zack Godley.

He’s Outta Here: SS Ronny Rodriguez, RHP Drew VerHagen, LHP Blaine Hardy, RHP Edwin Jackson, RHP Tyson Ross, SS Gordon Beckham, LHP Matt Moore, C John Hicks, LHP Daniel Stumpf, RHP Victor Alcantara, RHP Zac Reininger, LHP Matt Hall.

Going campin’: The Tigers hope the worst is behind them in their rebuild.

Casey Mize — the No. 1 pick in the 2018 draft — headlines a highly regarded group of pitching prospects. Although the expectation is that Mize and fellow right-hander Matt Manning will start the season at Triple-A, they’ll both be at spring training as non-roster invitees along with left-hander Tarik Skubal.

So fans in Lakeland will get a preview of what they hope will be some significant rotation help down the road.

Detroit’s leader in home runs last year was Brandon Dixon, who hit only 15 and is now a non-roster invitee. In an effort to boost their anemic offense, the Tigers added Schoop and Cron, who could become mainstays on the right side of the infield.

Shortstop seems like the most likely spot for utility-man Niko Goodrum, while Jeimer Candelario and Dawel Lugo are in the mix at third base. Catching prospect Jake Rogers hit just .125 in 112 at-bats in his big league debut last year. Romine gives Detroit more experience behind the plate.

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports http://fox4kc.com/2020/02/07/a-team-by-team-breakdown-of-the-al-central-clubs-at-the-start-of-spring-training/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2020/02/08/a-team-by-team-breakdown-of-the-al-central-clubs-at-the-start-of-spring-training/

[aion-rsa]

The Best Comics of the Decade

https://ift.tt/368Hmgo

We've read a TON of great comics in the last 10 years, and we picked out the 100 best for you to passionately disagree with.

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What a century this last decade has been.

Seriously, the pace of change over the last 10 years has been steadily rising, and has been somewhere between “dangerous” and “murderous” for the last 3, and that isn’t just about geopolitics: the comics world of today is certainly recognizable to a time traveller from 2010, but it would look extremely weird.

- Webcomics and medium press publishers are EVERYWHERE now.

- Marvel has embraced multiple restarts of its line.

- DC has rebooted its universe at least twice.

- Comics are for kids again.

- Nerds rule culture, for all that’s good and bad.

These changes have been catalysts for some very, very good comic books, and we wanted to give you a list of some of our favorites. Here are a few guiding principles to our list:

I am one person who can’t possibly read everything. There’s some stuff that won’t be on this list because I didn’t have time to get to it. Please share what was missed in the comments!

It’s also an exercise in opinion! I didn’t want to be redundant and talk about the same creators or characters over and over again, though there are some repeats. I ranked these according to what I enjoyed, and not some externally objective measure of what is the finest art. If anything, I’m biased towards what was interesting - books that have stuck with me for years, stuff I still think about or reread or recommend. That said, for longer runs like Scott Snyder’s Batman or Criminal, I tried to pick arcs that were symbolic of the entire run, or the best stories within a bigger picture.

And finally, it’s imperfect. I’ve been fiddling with a good chunk of this list for a month and a half, and every time I look, I realize something I forgot, or something I could move, or something that shouldn’t be ranked lower than something else. But ultimately, I’m pretty happy with everything here, and I’m willing to bet you’ll find something interesting you’ve never considered before in it, even if I’ve missed a few glaring stories.

With that in mind, Den of Geek is proud to unveil our empirically sound, objective, and absolute BEST COMICS OF THE 2010S

  100. Batman & Robin

Pete Tomasi, Patrick Gleason, Mick Gray, John Kalisz (DC Comics)

Tomasi and Gleason’s run never got the attention it deserved because it ran alongside huge ones - Grant Morrison’s Batman and Batman Inc. to start, and Scot Snyder and Greg Capullo’s monster New 52 series later. But I might like this one more: Tomasi writes hands down the best Damian Wayne I’ve ever read, and Gleason and Gray do bulky, shadowy Bat people perfectly. The high point is an issue around the middle of this run, post-Damian’s death but before he came back, when Batman is teaming up with Two-Face, and it might be my favorite single issue of Batman of all time. It’s such a perfect take on Two-Face that I come back to it every couple of years. Give this era of Batman a shot, I bet you love it.

read Batman & Robin on Amazon

  99. Black Science

Rick Remender, Matteo Scalera, Moreno Dionisio (Image Comics)

Black Science is a comic full of Rick Remender’s fears and worries. Scalera and Dionisio turn them into bright, colorful, wildly creative visuals as Grant McKay bounced around the Eververse trying to find a way at first to express his anarcho-scientistism, and then to save his family. It wrapped up earlier this year, and Remender and the team did an elegant job landing the plane on one of the best books from a wave of big name creator owned books that launched back in 2014.

read Black Science on Amazon

  98. Black

Kwanza Osajyefo, Tim Smith 3, Jamal Igle, Khary Randolph (Black Mask Studios)

Osajyefo, Smith, Igle and cover artist Khary Randolph’s comic about what would happen in a world where only black people got superpowers stripped the “mutant” part from “the mutant metaphor” and also the “metaphor” part, and gave us a story about black people being treated like exploitable resources by the US government. Igle’s black and white art was terrific, and the story is rough when you explain the plot, but rougher when it plays out on the page in front of you. 

read Black on Amazon

  97. Assassin Nation

Kyle Starks, Erica Henderson (Image Comics)

Starks and Henderson are both gifted comics creators on their own. Pairing them together gave us something beautiful - a book that’s about the world’s greatest assassins banding together to fight for their lives. It’s got unique characters with distinct voices and ridiculous, over the top action.

read Assassin Nation on Amazon

  96. Boundless

Jillian Tamaki (Drawn & Quarterly)

Time has sped up immensely in the last three years. Things that feel momentus happen and are forgotten four hours later. Trends are microtrends, fads are localized without geography, and entire 24-hour news cycles are compressed to the space between weathers on the 1s. So it’s really weird how a collection of in-the-moment short comics drawn (presumably) in 2016 feels extremely relevant and timely now. Tamaki takes a bunch of quick stories - about a mirror Facebook that shows you what might be in a parallel world; a Twilight Zone-esque cultural phenomenon mp3; a porn sitcom from the ‘90s gaining more than a cult following 25 years later - and uses the characters to say something interesting about them or us or our world. It’s a great book.

read Boundless on Amazon

  95. Imperium

Joshua Dysart, Doug Brathwaite, Scot Eaton, Cafu, Khari Evans, Ulisses Ariola (Valiant Entertainment)

Toyo Harada is a underratedly great villain, and Imperium is the story of him trying to impose his will on the world. Valiant books have, since their return early this decade, been pretty tightly intertwined, but most of their central narrative has revolved around Harada. He’s a great choice for that. He’s as big an egomaniac as Lex Luthor or Dr. Doom, but he’s got the benefit of operating in a world where the political rules are more like those of ours, which enhances everything good and bad about his character. Dysart and the art team give us an outstanding story about megalomania here.

read Imperium on Amazon

  94. X-Men: Second Coming

Matt Fraction, Zeb Wells, Mike Carey, Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost, David Finch, Terry Dodson, Greg Land, Mike Choi, Ibraim Roberson, Rachel Dodson, Sonia Oback (Marvel Comics)

Second Coming is the payoff to my favorite era of X-Men books so far, the Messiah Era. It starts out blazingly fast, and then plays out over the course of 14 issues and somehow speeds up as it goes along. It’s a straight up summer blockbuster action movie in comic form that does an excellent job blending voices, art styles and ongoing plots with the overall narrative of the crossover without losing any momentum.

read X-Men: Second Coming on Amazon

  93. Ultimates 2

Al Ewing, Travel Foreman, Christian Ward, Dan Brown (Marvel Comics)

Al Ewing is well on his way to stardom because of how good The Immortal Hulk is, but the cool kids all knew where he was going after he teamed up with Foreman and Ward to tell a story about the self-aware multiverse and cosmic entities of the Marvel universe in The Ultimates/Ultimates 2. This book is weird and gorgeous, and even if it leaned towards implying some big changes for the greater Marvel cosmology without ever seeing those changes bear fruit, it was still a terrific story on its own right.

read Ultimates 2 on Amazon

  92. Adventure Time

Ryan North, Shelli Paroline, Braden Lamb (BOOM! Studios)

A licensed property like Adventure Time is tough to get right. The cartoon is so inventive that even if you match what shows up on the screen, it’s still just a pale shadow because the creativeness of the ideas is the point. So it was a huge surprise when the comic nailed it - it was every bit as wild as the show, only it also captured the voices of the characters perfectly and delighted in being a comic in a way that made it a celebration of the medium. This was the first time North managed to get rollover text into a printed comic, and it works, man.

read Adventure Time on Amazon

  91. The Divine

Boaz Lavie, Asaf Hanuka, Tomer Hanuka (First Second)

The Hanukas do two things really, really well in The Divine. They do great scale shifts. The camera zooms from pulling in really close on an eye about to bleed to pulling waaaay back to show giant beasts roving what looks like a fantasy countryside, and each decision about where to put the camera serves the story well. And the coloring adds to the surrealness of the story. It’s bright and full of greens and pinks almost to the point of being disorienting, which is I think the goal of that palette choice. The story is excellent too, about Burmese (or I guess Myanmarese now) child soldiers defending the land of their gods from resource extractors.

read The Divine on Amazon

  90. Ivar, Timewalker

Fred Van Lente, Clayton Henry, Brian Reber (Valiant Entertainment)

Ivar is surprisingly emotional and a ton of fun. Tonally, it’s one of the most distinct Valiant comics - it threads the needle of Quantum & Woody comedy, X-O Manowar high adventure and Eternal Warrior mythmaking. Van Lente takes pieces from all of those genres and knits them together with a ton of humor to make a super entertaining comic. What’s not to like about a book that starts with the main character throwing up his arms and shouting “LET’S KILL HITLER!”?

read Ivar, Timewalker on Amazon

  89. Virgil

Steve Orlando, JD Faith, Chris Beckett, Tom Mauer (Image Comics)

What I liked most about Virgil is how little it felt like Orlando and Faith were shading the story. It’s simultaneously about how reprehensible Jamaica is towards gay people; crooked cops; and a love story; and a revenge story, and no one aspect overrules the others. Virgil is a dirty cop in Jamaica and also a gay man who loses his love and goes on a rampage. Every part of the story is given equal attention, and the final result is really, really good comics.

read Virgil on Amazon

  88. Memetic

James Tynion IV, Eryk Donovan (BOOM! Studios)

It’s shocking how prescient Memetic feels. It’s genuinely creepy horror work from Tynion and Donovan, but it’s also about a meme and the homogenization of culture, and it landed like, 3 years before those ideas really penetrated the cultural zeitgeist. Donovan’s art manages the tricky feat of nailing the genuine horror of the situation, from the shock on the characters’ faces to the gross-out body horror later in the book, but it’s also genuinely funny at times. That damn sloth meme has been stuck in my head for five years.

read Memetic on Amazon

87. The Manhattan Projects

Jonathan Hickman, Nick Pitarra, Jordie Bellaire (Image Comics)

Some books need long explanations to justify inclusion on a best books of the decade list. Some just need you to say “Richard Feynman and Albert Einstein gun down a space station full of FDRobots.” Guess which one Manhattan Projects is.

read The Manhattan Projects on Amazon

  86. O.M.A.C.

Dan DiDio, Keith Giffen, Scott Koblish, Hi-Fi (DC Comics)

O.M.A.C. is secretly the best New 52 launch title. Honestly, though, this book is and will always be an underrated gem: it’s DiDio, Giffen, and Koblish trying to do Jack Kirby with modern sensibilities. And it’s extremely, beautifully Kirby in so many different ways. I can’t believe it worked.

read OMAC on Amazon

  85. All-New Wolverine

Tom Taylor, David Lopez, David Navarrot, Nathan Fairbairn (Marvel Comics)

One of the best X-Men comics from the last ten years is also one of the most unexpected: it’s a Marvel book that steals DC’s traditional schtick about how to be a great legacy hero. Laura Kinney takes over Logan’s mask after her clonefather dies, and decides to make it a more outwardly and publicly superheroic mantle. Spoilers: she’s GREAT at it. Taylor gives her real growth as a character, and uses the best new character of the last 10 years (Jonathan the Wolverine and also Scout nee Honey Badger) to great effect. I was stunned at how much I loved this comic.

read All-New Wolverine on Amazon

84. Assassination Classroom

Yusei Matsui (Viz Media)

I’m not sure how I would briefly describe this book, and that’s part of why I love it. A monster destroys ¾ of the moon and says more is coming. But he gives mankind an out: Kill him inside of a year, and he’ll leave them alive. Then, and this is where it gets nuts, he takes over as homeroom teacher for a group of misfit teenagers and starts teaching them how to kill him. It’s basically Bad News Bears with a little more murder and some great manga art from Matsui.

read Assassination Classroom on Amazon

  83. Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Robert Hack (Archie Comics)

The best thing about Chilling Adventures of Sabrina isn’t that it spawned a great TV adaptation on Netflix. The best thing about it is how faithful to the comic the TV adaptation is. Part of Archie’s horror renaissance, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is a genre anachronism that revels in its horror story trappings and delights in placing wholesome Archie characters in it. It’s drawn well and smart and a lot of fun from start to finish.

read Chilling Adventures of Sabrina on Amazon

82. Uber

Kieron Gillen, Canaan White, Digikore Studios (Avatar Press)

Early on in Uber’s run, Gillen recommended Antony Beevor’s comprehensive history of World War II as something he leaned on heavily when constructing this book. It shows: Uber reads like a military history, rather than your typical comic about “What if they had super powers in World War II?” The supersoldiers are treated like any other military technology - resources to be deployed, depleted, exploited and overcome. This is probably the most interesting treatment of super powers I’ve seen in a comic in the decade.

read Uber on Amazon

  81. The Spire

Si Spurrier, Jeff Stokely, Andre May (BOOM! Studios)

Simon Spurrier does two things better than almost anyone in comics: he chooses incredible artists to work with, and he (and the artists) put together some stunning worlds for their characters to live in. The Spire is a murder mystery set in a fantasy city with a rigid class structure, and he and Stokely make a city that I felt immersed in immediately upon starting the book. One other thing Spurrier and crew do really well: wreck their main characters and break your heart, and The Spire is some of his best work.

read The Spire on Amazon

  80. Aliens: Dead Orbit

James Stokoe (Dark Horse Comics)

James Stokoe could have drawn 100 pages of character models and it would be on this list. He’s an incredible artist who draws incredibly detailed everything. Everything! Rubble. Ribcages. Control panels. Inner mandibles. Giving him an Aliens book is the no-brainer of no-brainers - this is what HR Geiger would have drawn if he was raised on anime.

read Aliens: Dead Orbit on Amazon

  79. Shade the Changing Girl

Cecil Catellucci, Marley Zarcone, Kelly Fitzpatrick (DC Comics)

It takes a really gifted eye to see the absurdity in everyday life and expose that to your readers with only a modest tweak to reality. Zarcone and Castellucci use dropping Rac Shade’s madness vest and Loma the alien bird into the body of a comatose mean girl as their way to show just how silly teenage life can be, and it’s beautiful. Shade the Changing Girl and its follow up, Shade the Changing Woman, both do magnificent work of using insanity to take you through a rollercoaster of emotions.

read Shade the Changing Girl on Amazon

  78. Wuvable Oaf

Ed Luce (Fantagraphics)

I think the best part about Wuvable Oaf, the indie book about black metal San Francisco bears is just how nice it is. It’s a really sweet, funny courtship story about an ex-underground wrestler starting a relationship with a small, blood-drenched metal singer. I find myself recommending this book to a surprising amount of people.

read Wuvable Oaf on Amazon

77. Upgrade Soul

Ezra Claytan Daniels (Lion Forge Comics)

Ezra Claytan Daniels went for messed up, twisty sci fi right out of the gate, and it was a home run. Upgrade Soul is an ugly body modification story about trying to prolong one’s life unnaturally, and what happens if that’s not all really well thought out beforehand. It’s drawn really well: even now, the scene with the gauze coming off layer by layer, the pacing of it and the skill of setting that sequence up, is amazing.

read Upgrade Soul on Amazon

  76. Strong Female Protagonist

Brennan Lee Mulligan, Molly Ostertag 

“What if superheroes were real” is usually an exceptionally stupid premise for a comic, but there are plenty of ridiculous components to the superhero conceit that are worth examining. One of them is the value of superheroing - does flying around punching shit really actually fix anything? In Strong Female Protagonist, Alison Green asks that question, decides it doesn’t, and quits capes for college and activism in New York. This is a great story well told, but what I enjoy about it now is how New York it feels. It’s a really thoughtful take on superheroing, but it’s also a really good story that transports you to an age and a place.

read Strong Female Protagonist here

  75. Journey Into Mystery

Kieron Gillen, Doug Brathwaite, Ulises Ariola & others (Marvel Comics)

Journey Into Mystery shouldn’t have been successful. Loki wasn’t quite at the height of his powers yet, and while he was getting there, even now he can’t really carry his own book. It was also a legacy numbered relaunch coming out of a big summer crossover event. And yet, Kieron managed to take new kid Loki and use him to tell a story about stories and fate and myth that stands up there with some of the greatest Asgard stories ever told. What he does with the trickster god is actually sad and moving (and also generally hilarious - he writes a really fun Loki).  it It’s one of my favorite things he’s ever written.

read Journey Into Mystery on Amazon

  74. Kinski

Gabriel Hardman (Monkeybrain Comics)

Sometimes, a comic is just plain good. Sometimes, a comic prominently features the GOODEST BOY on a cover. Sometimes, as is the case with Kinski, a comic does both. Hardman is a master of the form, and Kinski is one of his most underrated works. It’s the story of a guy bored with his life and trying to save a black lab puppy - not especially complicated or deep, but enough to hook me in, especially with the VERY GOOD BOY on the cover. But his art is magnificent. It’s black and white, and Hardman uses just about every inking style and manner to help tell the story. It’s virtuoso stuff. I loved it.

read Kinski on Amazon

73. The Sheriff of Babylon

Tom King, Mitch Gerads (Vertigo Comics)

With a list like this, sometimes it’s not the full sweep of a story that gets it on, but the remembered moments. I’ve seen King and Gerads work together a hundred times since then (or at least it feels like that - time has no meaning anymore). It’s all been spectacular, but the scene with Chris and Fatima in the Saddam’s old pool sharing a bottle of vodka talking about pointlessness still stands out hard for me. The Sheriff of Babylon has gotten better with age, and it started out really, really good.

read The Sheriff of Babylon on Amazon

72. Genius

Marc Bernardin, Adam Freeman, Afua Richardson (Image Comics)

If you call a book Genius, it damn well better be brilliant. Fortunately for us, it was. Bernardin, Freeman and Richardson told us the story of Destiny, a precocious and brilliant military mind born into South Central and using her strategic genius to bring down the corrupt cops who have been terrorizing her neighborhood. It feels like it was timely when it came out, but it doesn’t read like a political statement. It reads like a really good revenge story. Richardson’s art was sharp and well laid out, and is a huge part of why Genius was so good.

read Genius on Amazon

  71. Judas

Jeff Loveness, Jakub Rebelka (BOOM! Studios)

This book came out of nowhere for me. Loveness and Rebelka expanded on the story of Christ and Judas in a fascinating way. Judas is a whip smart comic that thinks around a lot of the unspoken corners of Jesus’s story. And it’s gorgeous: Rebelka draws the hell out of Hell. His backgrounds and settings are every bit as impressive as the storytelling accomplishment. Judas turned out to be an outstanding story.

read Judas on Amazon

  70. Midnighter

Steve Orlando, ACO, Hugo Petrus, Romulo Fajardo, Jr & others (DC Comics)

Sometimes I just want to see a man punch his own ears off to stop from hearing a killing word.

read more: The Best Comics of 2015

Orlando and ACO gave us one of my favorite fight comics of all time in Midnighter (and continued in Midnighter and Apollo). It’s clever and sexy, and it delights in being a comic the way all the greatest fight comics do. The flow of the fights is spectacular - these are some of the best punching scenes I’ve ever read. It’s basically an ultraviolent, morally indignant James Bond. It’s terrific.

read Midnighter on Amazon

69. Black Hammer

Jeff Lemire, Dean Ormston, Dave Stewart & others (Dark Horse Comics)

Something always feels off in Lemire’s best work. In a good way. And something feels really off throughout Black Hammer, which is the entire point of the story. The universe Lemire and Ormston create is a love letter to silver age DC books, but at the same time it misses those comic sensibilities a lot, and Lemire makes his characters mourn that loss on the page. It’s a really interesting structure for a story, paired with some terrific art from Ormston and some inventive fill-ins and spinoffs from David Rubin and Matt Kindt and others. Black Hammer is top to bottom a great book.

read Black Hammer on Amazon

68. My Friend Dahmer

Derf Backderf (Abrams Publishing)

I’m not usually one for true crime stories, especially not ones that try and humanize monstrous serial killers, but Backderf’s story of his old high school acquaintance, human eater Jeffrey Dahmer, is really good. Backderf’s art is very much of the underground comix style, which elevates the story, I think. Dahmer is disturbing and troubling throughout the book, but he’s also very much a weird gawky teenager, and in this art style, everyone is. The story humanizes him without excusing him, but I think the real reason it works is because it’s tinged with regret on Backderf’s part about the ways his relationship with Dahmer could have been different.

read My Friend Dahmer on Amazon

67. No Mercy

Alex de Campi, Carla Speed McNeil (Image Comics)

De Campi and McNeil took a book that could have been a lazy Lord of the Flies-but-with-social-media premise and turned it into a great character book. No Mercy takes a bunch of shitty teens on a field trip, and slowly turns several of them away from their shitty teen-ness and fleshes them out into an interesting dynamic and a great story. McNeil’s art is excellent: when they’re stuck in the desert, you feel hot and dry reading it, and every emotion these kids feel is beautifully shown in their face and their body language. This wasn’t a book I expected to come back to when I finished it, but it’s been a strong read even down the road.

read No Mercy on Amazon

  66. Runaways

Rainbow Rowell, Kris Anka, Matthew Wilson & others (Marvel Comics)

Rowell is a revelation as a comic writer. The way she juggles this huge cast is incredibly skillful writing. She’s got a good grasp on everyone’s voice and knows all the continuity of the old team cold. The book is vastly more enjoyable than the TV series as a teen hero soap opera, and Anka and Wilson make it way cooler to look at, too.

read Runaways on Amazon

  65. Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man

Chip Zdarsky, Adam Kubert, Jordie Bellaire & others (Marvel Comics)

Chip Zdarsky’s growth into one of Marvel’s most earnest writers was a surprising and outstanding development. I don’t think he’s done better work on any character than Spider-Man. It makes sense - Peter lends himself to stories that walk a tightrope between funny and tragic, and Chip is able to fine tune his characters and plots to nail both aspects. 

read more: The Best Comics of 2016

Zdarsky got to work with some amazing artists on this run: Kubert does some of his best work, and Chris Bachalo should draw all Sandman stories forever and ever. But the real standouts are Peter’s dinner with Jonah in #6 (drawn by Michael Walsh), and the last issue of Chip’s run (#310). Both of them are really granular Spidey character studies that show why Peter is such a terrific hero, show just how much Zdarsky gets him, and show just how good Chip’s writing can be.

read Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man on Amazon

  64. Ragnarok

Walter Simonson (IDW Publishing)

It’s Walt Simonson drawing a Thor comic. He already did the best Thor story of all time. This is more of the same. I don’t think I really need to go into greater detail here, right? I will, for the sake of argument: there’s a full page splash at the beginning of the first issue that has Thor facing down the Serpent of Midgard and it is gorgeous. You can almost count the scales on the serpent. 

read Ragnarok on Amazon

63. Mox Nox

Joan Cornella (Fantagraphics)

Cornella’s absurdist comic strips still, years later, make me die laughing. Mox Nox is a collection of his work that shows just how many situations you can put his ridiculous, Weeble-looking figures into that will shock you with their gore or make you shout laughing. 

read Mox Nox on Amazon

  62. The Valiant

Matt Kindt, Jeff Lemire, Paolo Rivera, Joe Rivera (Valiant Entertainment)

Valiant has published some consistently excellent comics over the last decade, but they hit a high point with The Valiant, an Avengers-esque team up of all the heroes of the Valiant universe that focused on Bloodshot, the Geomancer and the Eternal Warrior. It worked so well for two reasons: the relationship between Bloodshot and the Geomancer was incredibly well written and heartbreaking in the end, and the art from the Riveras was incredible. Paolo Rivera doesn’t draw anywhere near as many comics as I would like (that number is generally “nearly all of the comics”), so when he is on a book, you know you’re going to get some beautiful stories.

read The Valiant on Amazon

  61. One Punch Man

ONE, Yusuke Murata (Viz Media)

I didn’t even realize I needed a fight manga parody in my life, but then One Punch Man rolled through and I love it and want more.

read more: The Best Comics of 2017

Saitama trains himself to become a hero, and gets so powerful he can defeat horrifying giant monsters with one punch. Then he gets super bored because nothing is a challenge, and the rest of the first volume is light mocking of fight comics that I found immensely entertaining and really funny. It’s not going to tell us anything about ourselves as a society or have a bigger message than “heh this is pretty silly, isn’t it?” But sometimes that’s perfect.

read One Punch Man on Amazon

  60. Darth Vader

Kieron Gillen, Salvador Larocca, Edgar Delgado (Marvel Comics)

The way the Star Wars prequels neutered Darth Vader is a crime against a character. Miraculously, the move to Disney shifted him back from the hurt puppy dog teenager that the prequels turned him into (and the mystical waste of time that the Special Editions and the books made him) and into a merciless badass force of nature. That shift started in earnest in this book - Gillen and Larocca made him mad again, and a pissed off Sith Lord is a force of nature I loved reading about.

read Darth Vader on Amazon

  59. The Highest House

Mike Carey, Peter Gross, Fabien Alquiler (IDW Publishing)

Carey and Gross are a great team. Their work together on Lucifer is some of the best comics of all time, and the world they built in The Highest House is as good or better. It’s my favorite type of fantasy comic - one that builds a rich, full, beautiful world, and then tears it down through deft character work. It’s a fantasy comic that’s so easy to disappear into, both the world that’s created and the possibilities it opens up.

read The Highest House on Amazon

58. The Nib

Matt Bors & others 

“Mister Gotcha” is up there with “This is Fine” as probably my favorite quick comic gags of the decade. Bors is an extremely sharp cartoonist and a gifted satirist, and The Nib is a regular stop in my daily routine.

read The Nib here

57. The Wild Storm

Warren Ellis, Jon Davis Hunt, Steve Buccellato (DC Comics)

The Wild Storm stands on its own as an amazing comic series. It took everything great about the old Wildstorm world and updated it for a modern, more paranoid, more technologically advanced society. Davis Hunt drew some stunning action sequences and used panel layouts and pacing to incredible effect to propel the story. But the most interesting part of it to me is how it functions as a self reassessment by Ellis, a weird and fun sort of remix and update of his own prior work. It’s excellent.

read The Wild Storm on Amazon

56. House of X/Powers of X

Jonathan Hickman, Pepe Larraz, RB Silva, Marte Gracia (Marvel Comics) 

HoXPoX made it fun to be an X-Men fan again. It’s beating a dead horse at this point, but these books were tremendous accomplishments. Larraz and Silva vaulted to superstardom, Hickman rewrote the entire history of the X-Men, and Gracia made every panel sing.

read House of X/Powers of X on Amazon

55. Sex Criminals

Matt Fraction, Chip Zdarsky (Image Comics)

Qualifying a raunchy sex comedy as weirdly sweet almost seems cliche at this point, but Sex Criminals is the rare story that can match graphic depictions of Urban Dictionary sex positions, a story about people who can stop time when they orgasm, and brutally honest depictions of intimate relationships and make it all entirely relatable. It’s a wonderful story. But also I’m still mostly here for the comedy - Zdarsky puts so much detail into it that every splash page is like a Where’s Waldo of insane sex jokes.

read Sex Criminals on Amazon

54. The Nameless City

Faith Erin Hicks, Jordie Bellaire (First Second)

The Nameless City feels like if Avatar The Last Airbender was about class and not martial arts and the pressure of leadership. It’s one of the few graphic novel series that I remembered to put on a pull list, every volume improving on the last. Hicks’ art is gorgeously cartoony, detailed and loose at the same time, and it builds an engrossing world with fascinating characters that tells the story of a city and a people in major transition. It’s a series I can’t wait to share with family.

read The Nameless City on Amazon

53. Exit, Stage Left! The Snagglepuss Chronicles

Mark Russell, Mike Feehan, Paul Mounts (DC Comics)

I’ve said this a thousand times before, but it’s worth repeating: I don’t understand how the hell this comic got made, and my gast is further flabbered by the fact that it’s amazing. Exit Stage Left recast Snagglepuss as a ‘50s gothic playwright living in New York City; Huckleberry Hound as his novelist best friend; and Quick Draw McGraw as Huck’s down low cop boyfriend, and told a compelling story about fame and society that was equal parts clever, funny, sweet and sad. Brilliant and wry, Mark Russell is one of the best new additions to comics this decade. If you haven’t read this book (which doubles as a stealth period piece about the dawn of the gay rights movement in America I STILL CAN’T BELIEVE I’M TYPING THIS), you should go get it right now.

read Exit, Stage Left! The Snagglepuss Chronicles on Amazon

  52. These Savage Shores

Ram V, Sumit Kumar, Vittorio Astone (Vault Comics)

Ram V, Kumar and Astone do a wonderful job of building a story with a rich world that’s unlike most stories I’ve ever read before, and they do it with incredible skill. The period aspects of the story are lush and gorgeous, but Kumar and Astone’s art is magnificent, paced perfectly with a flow of movement that belies a storytelling skill that you don’t often find in small press superhero comics. The panel flow is really exceptional, and Astone’s colors make this vampire/demon battle sing.

read These Savage Shores on Amazon

51. The Dark Angel Saga, Uncanny X-Force

Rick Remender, Jerome Opena, Mark Brooks, Esad Ribic, Dean White & others (Marvel Comics)

X-Men comics have picked back up recently, but prior to HoXPoX, their pinnacle for me was the Dark Angel Saga. Specifically, Psylocke and Angel’s moment of eternal bliss as their world was destroyed around them. Jerome Opena and Dean White made the visuals so vivid that I could hear the wind roaring around Betsy and Warren, and Remender had done such a good job of building the duo’s relationship that I was almost in tears reading it for the first time. The rest of the run is essential reading: it has my favorite non-movie Deadpool and some of the best Apocalypse stuff since the Age of Apocalypse, but that moment is just so amazing.

read The Dark Angel Saga on Amazon

50. Wytches

Scott Snyder, Jock, Matt Hollingsworth (Image Comics)

Snyder is a terrific horror writer, and Wytches is by far the scariest thing I’ve ever read from him. That is probably due in large part to Jock and Hollingsworth. The story is dark Americana horror, pure and uncut Snyder right on the page, about monstrous ancient covens and their secret network around the world. Jock makes the normal humans look terrified and the Wytches stretched, shrouded beasts escaping from knots in trees to steal kids and ruin families, and Hollingsworth changes palettes deftly to match the tone of the panel (or even half panel, sometimes). Wytches is incredibly well made comics.

read Wytches on Amazon

49. Fantasy Sports

Sam Bosma (Nobrow Press)

Fantasy Sports isn’t complicated. It’s about a treasure hunter who has to beat a mummy at basketball to loot a pyramid. See? Super straightforward.

read more: The Best Comics of 2018

Bosma’s art is the star here. It’s somewhere between sports manga and Adventure Time. It’s vibrant and fun, full of great movement in a story that hums along. And it’s really accessible - it’s shelved closest to the ground in my house, so kids can pull it out and get hooked the same way I did.

read Fantasy Sports on Amazon

48. Sexcastle

Kyle Starks (Image Comics)

I don’t know if any comic in the last ten years has more quotable lines in it than Sexcastle. I have found a way to work “You brought a YOU to a ME fight,” and “Are you okay? Just kidding, fuck you” into more professional conversations than I’m comfortable with, frankly. Sexcastle is a hard riff on ‘80s action movies that has Shane Sexcastle, the badass killer and star of the comic, spouting bad pun catchphrases almost exclusively throughout the book. Sexcastle both loves and viciously parodies those movies, and the resulting comic is almost flawless. Starks is an absolutely hilarious writer, talented enough to get a shot on anything he writes, but nothing will be quite as surprising or as funny as Sexcastle.

read Sexcastle on Amazon

  47. G.I. Joe: Cobra

Mike Costa, Christos Gage, Antonio Fuso, Lovern Kindzierski (IDW Publishing)

It took IDW a minute to get going with G.I. Joe after they got the license, but once they did, these series turned into one of a couple of shockingly good, well-thought-out licensed comics they put out over the decade. Almost immediately, Costa and Gage put Chuckles in deep cover at Cobra Command and went hard dark on the tone. From there, they assassinated Cobra Commander, set off a nuke, and launched a power struggle to control the terrorist organization that included a Joe killing competition. Costa, Fuso, and Gage did an amazing job of juggling enormous casts and controlling for different voices. Everything from G.I. Joe: Cobra through the Cobra Civil War is amazing stuff.

read G.I. Joe: Cobra on Amazon

  46. Battling Boy

Paul Pope (First Second)

Battling Boy is unlike any other comic I’ve read in the last decade. I spent a good three hours trying to come up with a clever analogy for this book, like “Witch’s Night Out meets Thor in a Flash Gordon strip,” but they’re all grossly inadequate. Pope is one of the most unique minds working in comics. He puts more character in one grease smear on a face than a lot of creators can fit in long runs. Battling Boy is fine pulpy adventure comics that work for any comic reader.

read Battling Boy on Amazon

45. The Omega Men

Tom King, Barnaby Bagenda, Jose Marzan, Jr., Romulo Fajardo (DC Comics)

Omega Men is still, several years on, some heavy, heavy shit. The shock of the twist, hell the shock of the series still makes me smile. That it was a comic book that was advertised with Kyle Rayner seemingly beheaded on camera and beamed around the galaxy was stunning; that the seeming beheading wasn’t the most shocking part of the book is amazing. It’s a miracle this book happened (literally - it was cancelled and uncancelled midway through), but I’m so glad it did. It was ambitious and smart, and unlike anything we’d seen in comics in years at the time.

read The Omega Men on Amazon

  44. Lady Killer

Joelle Jones, Jamie S. Rich, Laura Allred (Dark Horse Comics)

Joelle Jones is a superstar now. I’m fairly sure that it started because of this comic, and I’m absolutely certain it’s deserved. Lady Killer is the story of a ‘50s housewife who’s an assassin on the side, and it’s everything the premise suggests. It’s grindhousey and funny and gory, but through it all, Jones’ art is amazing and Allred’s colors are perfect. It’s a lot of fun to read.

read Lady Killer on Amazon

  43. Infinite Kung Fu

Kagan McLeod (Top Shelf Productions)

Kagan McLeod’s story in Infinite Kung Fu is a little bit rote for the genre - it’s a kung fu movie put to page, nonsense and all. But my god the art. The pages are practically crackling with life. The big swoopy inks and the way McLeod makes the characters move and the way the fights flow from panel to panel and the scale of some of these fights and it’s all just incredible, incredible artwork. Even if the story is a little pedestrian, the art is some of the best I’ve ever seen.

read Infinite Kung Fu on Amazon

  42. Bandette

Paul Tobin, Colleen Coover (Monkeybrain Comics)

Bandette is about an adventuring teen art thief in Paris. It’s silly and cute and charming and gorgeous. It’s also extremely uncomplicated: this is an easy book to love because Coover’s art is lovely, and Tobin’s plots are clear and clever. I try my hardest to find some deeper meaning or hidden skill that the creators have that makes a book stand out, but Bandette is just a really straightforward, fun, nice book.

read Bandette on Amazon

41. Hawkeye

Matt Fraction, David Aja, Matt Hollingsworth & others (Marvel Comics)

Hawkeye launched David Aja into the stratosphere, and gave Fraction the juice to do whatever he wanted (like, for example, write a sci-fi gender flipped Odyssey adaptation comic in dactylic hexameter). It radically changed Clint Barton for a decade. And in a lot of ways, its influence still rings out now, because it’s just really good.

Aja is a madman. His art flows differently from anyone who came before, but it’s been mimicked so many times since, and even when imitators try and fail to live up to his standards, they still usually do something interesting. Fraction succeeded at a time when Marvel was going in a million different directions by pulling the camera way in on the Marvel Universe - focusing on an apartment building, making a street crime book with a regular guy and turning Kate Bishop from a supporting Young Avenger into one of the best characters in the Marvel library.

read Hawkeye on Amazon

40. Batman: The Black Mirror, Detective Comics

Scott Snyder, Jock, Francesco Francavilla, David Baron (DC Comics)

Scott Snyder is one of those creators I’ll follow just about anywhere, and it all stems from how ridiculously good his Black Mirror story was in Detective Comics. Back when Bruce was still traipsing about the world, turning the International Club of Heroes into Batman, Incorporated, Dick Grayson was back in Gotham being the best Batman and solving this dense, moody, disorienting crime. It was a deep Grayson character study, a deep Gotham character study, and a showcase for the incredible art of Jock and Francavilla.

read more: The Best Comics of 2019

Snyder did some incredible things with Bruce Wayne when he and Greg Capullo got control of the main Batman book post-New 52 (especially the last story arc - stunning stuff). But The Black Mirror is even better. Whenever someone asks me for a Batman comic gift recommendation, this is what I tell them to buy.

read Batman: The Black Mirror on Amazon

  39. Giant Days

John Allison, Lissa Tremain, Max Sarin, Julia Madrigal, Whitney Cogar (BOOM! Studios)

Pick any issue of Giant Days at random and read five pages of it, and I promise you will recognize every character who speaks immediately. Allison and the art team have that tight a grasp on conversational dialogue that this entire book was relatable all the way through. It’s a smart, funny comic about growing up that focuses on the growing you do in your early 20s, which is a breath of fresh air considering most coming of age stories stop at 16. Seeing the characters flourish into adults is part of what made Giant Days special, but it’s mostly the ridiculous skill of the creators.

read Giant Days on Amazon

  38. Berlin

Jason Lutes (Drawn & Quarterly)

Lutes has been working on this for 20 years and finished it in 2018, and you can see the unbelievable care and craft in every page. Berlin follows a couple of working class people through the fall of Weimar Germany in the late 20s until the Nazis take over, and even though it’s fictional, it’s incredibly interesting to see Germany’s collapse as it related to regular people, and not as big, momentous historical events. The history comes across as a much more jagged line. Lutes is wonderful at using the pace of layouts to tell the story, and his art is immaculately clean and clear.

read Berlin on Amazon

  37. The Underwater Welder

Jeff Lemire (Vertigo Comics) 

When Jeff Lemire draws his own stuff, watch out: you’re about to get something profoundly uncomfortable. And The Underwater Welder is precisely that. It’s so good at making you feel like something’s wrong.

read more: The Best Movies of the Decade

It works because it’s never completely honest about what the story is about. Jack is an underwater welder, like his father was, and he’s got a wife and a kid on the way. But he becomes obsessed with his father’s old watch, and that obsession is a focus for his panic about becoming a father. Lemire’s art is all rough-looking freehand and watery inks, perfect for a guy who spends most of his time in a diving suit. The atmosphere of The Underwater Welder is almost asphyxiating. I love it.

read The Underwater Welder on Amazon

36. Ms. Marvel

G. Willow Wilson, Adrian Alphona, Takeshi Miyazawa, Nico Leon, Ian Herring (Marvel Comics)

As I sit down to write this, I literally just came back from picking up the first collection of Ms. Marvel for a Christmas present for my niece. Wilson, Alphona, Sana Amanat, and Jamie McKelvie (who did designs for the character) created maybe the best fictional teenager in the last decade in Kamala Khan. It’s been a long time since I’ve been a teenager, but I think the response from actual #teens will back me up here: her struggles with time management, emotions, and awkward social interactions felt incredibly real. The art, from Alphona, Miyazawa and Leon was spectacular, doing an especially great job of showing who Kamala is through her powers. This is a great book to have around.

read Ms. Marvel on Amazon

34. Deathstroke

Christopher Priest, Carlo Pagaluyan, Jason Paz, Jeromy Cox & more (DC Comics)

It just ended, and at every point during its 50 issue run, Christopher Priest’s Deathstroke felt like it was made specifically for me. It was a sneaky family soap opera on par with the greatest X-Men stories, but with Priest’s signature banter and pacing to bring it to the next level. The art was always superb from Pagaluyan, and the editing team brought in some absolutely killer supplemental teams (Cowan and Sienkiewicz are always a yes), but it was the story and how it was presented that made this run really special.

read Deathstroke on Amazon

  34. Monstress

Marjorie Liu, Sana Takeda (Image Comics)

Takeda’s art looks like an illuminated manuscript. Seriously, it’s so detailed and intricate that it makes me slow down when I’m reading, which is a feat, because I’m predisposed to blaze through comics. But that detail work is what makes her art special, and what pushes Monstress from very good to great. The world that Liu and Takeda built in Monstress is lush and rich and incredibly easy to disappear into, and it’s a consistent joy to read.

read Monstress on Amazon

  33. The Vision

Tom King, Gabriel Hernandez Walta, Michael Walsh, Jordie Bellaire (Marvel Comics)

I’m pretty sure I spent more time shaking my head at the events of The Vision than any other book on this list. What Tom King did to this family is deeply, profoundly messed up. Walta, Walsh, and Bellaire were essential to building the eerie, uncomfortable atmosphere that pervaded this whole story, and the facial expressions especially helped land the twist in the middle, the plot point that shifted the story from “oh no that’s super messed up” to “aww that’s really sad and also super messed up.”

read more: The Best TV Episodes of 2019

What might be the most shocking part about it is how much of this run endured in continuity through the years: Viv Vision is showing up left and right, and Victor Mancha’s fate here is a big plot point in Rowell and Anka’s wonderful Runaways relaunch.

read The Vision on Amazon

  32. 4 Kids Walk Into A Bank

Matthew Rosenberg, Tyler Boss (Black Mask Studios)

This one is all about the patter. Rosenberg makes the kids sound so entertaining and makes their interpersonal dynamic so engrossing that you get wrapped up in the world of 4 Kids Walk Into A Bank easily. Tyler Boss’ art is terrific, selling the exaggerated expressions that kids make, where a smile often starts in their legs, and landing all the humor just as comfortably. It’s a comic that could have ended up as nostalgic tripe, but instead, 4 Kids Walk Into A Bank turned out great.

read 4 Kids Walk Into a Bank on Amazon

  31. Kid Gloves

Lucy Knisley (First Second)

Kid Gloves is amazing for a lot of reasons. It’s informative and moving and personal, with a lot of history and politics that I think are really important components to a larger conversation that the book can be part of. Here’s the thing about it for me, though: I started reading it at the library. About halfway through, I put it back on the shelf, walked up the street to a book store and bought a copy. I knew from how much I was talking to the book while reading it that it was something I wanted to keep on my shelf and refer back to in the future. And I feel really good about that decision.

read Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Careful Chaos on Amazon

  30. XKCD

Randall Munroe (Webcomic)

It didn’t inspire any stirring condemnations from legendary filmmakers, but I wonder if Randall Munroe’s half webcomic/half infographic didn’t have the biggest low key impact of any comic in the last decade. I feel like you’re vastly more likely to see an XKCD strip on someone’s desk, or tacked to the door of an office, or passed around on social media, than you are anything from Marvel or DC that isn’t designed to trigger the internet outrage cycle.

This is because Munroe is really good at cartooning. I mean, okay, he’s not going to paint you a Rembrandt, but his stick figures have a way of sneaking emotion up on you, through their shoulders and their heads. And he’s whip smart, too, but his comics help present his knowledge in an accessible, open way. XKCD has been in every iteration of blog reader I’ve had since 2010, and I’ll be checking in on it until it ends, because it’s terrific.

read XKCD here

  29. Two Brothers

Gabriel Ba & Fabio Moon (Dark Horse Comics)

Ba & Moon do some amazing work in this adaptation of a novel from their native Brazil about two brothers, their doting mom, and the woman who comes between them. The artwork in Two Brothers is stunningly good and improves on the source material by taking some of the novels most impactful scenes and making them visually striking. Two Brothers isn’t a splashy comic, but it’s a damn good one, one that will stick with you for a long time.

read Two Brothers on Amazon

28. Lumberjanes

Noelle Stevenson, Shannon Watters, Grace Ellis, Brooke Allen, Carolyn Nowak, Carey Pietch, Maarta Laiho & more (BOOM! Studios)

Lumberjanes takes a lot of what worked about The Goonies and makes it smarter in a different way to give us one of the most fun and purest adventure comics in recent memory. It’s no surprise that Stevenson is kicking so much ass on She-Ra.

The book has been going for some time now, so the creative teams have shifted, but the art is remarkably consistent through the volumes, and it’s clear, sharp cartooning that’s exaggerated in all the right ways for a woodsy, camping adventure tale like this. Lumberjanes is another book with a huge cast that’s well managed, and it’s a lot of fun to read through.

read Lumberjanes on Amazon        

  27. Showa: A History of Japan

Shigeru Mizuki (Drawn & Quarterly)

Technically, Showa is like, 30 years old. But it took 25 of those years for it to be released in the States, and there are no rules to this list, so I’m counting it.

Mizuki is one of the fathers of manga as a form, and as someone who came to his work after reading folks like Otomo and Urasawa, and decades after becoming familiar with anime, his work feels quaint and unsophisticated. Which is a really interesting pairing with the subject matter - Showa is a history of Japan in the Showa era, spanning the ‘20s through the late ‘80s, a period of massive transition for Japan that I mostly knew from broad strokes. He switches back and forth between a hyper-detailed realistic style that looks like (and sometimes is) tracing, and the cartoony manga style he uses to illustrate personal moments that tie into that history. It’s an incredibly effective storytelling technique and a useful way to bring the reader’s attention past the big picture and down to the regular peoples’ perspective of that big change. Showa is an incredible history book, and a masterpiece of the form.

read Showa on Amazon

  26. Copra

Michel Fiffe (Bergen Street Comics/Image Comics)

It’s still amazing to me that Copra can even get made. It started out as a...spiritual sequel to Ostrander/Yale/McDonnell Suicide Squad in that it was almost an actual direct lift of Ostrander/Yale/McDonnell Suicide Squad only with Doctor Strange and Clea added in. But it was done with weird indie linework and colored pencil coloring, with a big zine aesthetic that made it immediately compelling. And once I got into it, I realized that Fiffe had captured everything great about that Suicide Squad run but turned it into something dstinctly his own, and I’ve loved it ever since.

read Copra on Amazon

  25. Afterlife with Archie

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Francesco Francavilla (Archie Comics)

This comic should not exist. It should not be good. It certainly shouldn’t be one of the best comics I’ve read in the last decade. And yet, Afterlife with Archie remains incredible. In fact, it might be the purest, finest zombie story I’ve experienced in a while. The slowly building tension is a masterclass in mood. Aguirre-Sacasa does a great job of taking Riverdale’s existing dynamic and plopping it into a zombie horror story so you get something that is recognizably both things at the same time. Francavilla’s art is probably the least surprising part of the equation, in that it is incredible. And the fact that you can probably draw a straight line between some of the themes here and what ended up on your screens in Riverdale is...pretty insane. And amazing.

read Afterlife With Archie on Amazon

  24. Scalped

Jason Aaron, R.M. Guera (Vertigo)

The best thing about Jason Aaron and R.M. Guera’s Scalped is the cast. It’s a HUGE book, about an FBI investigation into corruption on a reservation that sends Dash Bad Horse back home undercover to investigate. Everyone Dash encounters, and everyone who’s conspiring to make life in Pairie Rose garbage, is a full character within two sentences. They all sound different, move different, look different. They carry the weight of a rough life in their posture and their cadence.

Superhero comics developed the distinctive costumes so artists could distinguish between characters easily. It’s hard to draw distinctive, consistent, recognizable people in street clothes, but Guera is amazing at it, and Aaron puts so much care and character into everyone who sets foot on the page that Scalped is impossible to put down.

read Scalped on Amazon

  23. Nancy

Olivia Jaimes (GoComics)

“Sluggo is lit” isn’t quite the cultural phenomenon it was when Olivia Jaimes, the pseudonymous cartoonist, first introduced it to the strip she took over in 2018. But it’s still damn funny. I’ll admit, I completely blew it on Nancy in 2018 - it hadn’t registered with me because I don’t get print newspapers and only have a passing knowledge of their comic strips anymore. But when I first saw it, I died laughing.

And then I took a closer look  at some of the comics - the one where Nancy steals the cookies from the top of the fridge by tossing them between panels to herself, or the joke about filler where the last panel is mostly an empty word balloon - and I realized that Jaimes, in addition to being funny as hell, really gets how to screw with the flow of information from comic to reader. She’s exceptionally talented, and Nancy is amazing work.

read Nancy here

  22. The Hard Tomorrow

Eleanor Davis (Drawn & Quarterly)

The Hard Tomorrow stressed me out, and then lifted me up at the end. It’s very much a comic about our current moment (and by “current moment,” I mean the singularity that the last four years have compressed into). It doesn’t capture the terror that some groups might feel, but it does a great job of conveying that background hum, like a cultural migrane, that makes everything more difficult in the world. And then, intentionally or not, it swings the story back around and pumps you full of hope and meaning with the last ten pages. It’s incredible comics work from Eleanor Davis, an amazing talent.

read The Hard Tomorrow on Amazon

21. My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies

Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips, Jake Phillips (Image Comics)

You can read any Criminal comic and come away happy. Okay, maybe not “happy” per se - My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies is an extremely unhappy comic, about a girl who meets a boy in rehab, gets him back on drugs with her and then goes on a trip with him, framed around her pretentious love of drug addicted musicians. It would be obnoxious if it wasn’t so incredibly well done and packed in with a twist at the end that makes it go from messed up to REALLY messed up. Everything Brubaker and Phillips have done together, back to Sleeper, has been superlative, but from the last ten years, I really feel like this is their best work.

read My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies on Amazon

20. Through the Woods

Emily Carroll (Margaret K. McElderry Books)

I don’t think there’s anybody doing slow, creepy, gothic horror like Emily Carroll right now. Through the Woods is a collection of short stories that’s full of dark blacks and loose line work, the letters worked into the art organically to amplify the creepiness and the stories built to scare. She comes at normal relationships and injects them with something horrific, but paces it so incredibly well that you barely notice it until the end, when something happens to finally make your skin crawl. Carroll is a gifted storyteller, and Through the Woods is some of the best horror stuff out there.

read Through the Woods on Amazon

  19. The Flintstones

Mark Russell, Steve Pugh, Chris Chuckry (DC Comics)

Anytime a comic can get a physical reaction out of me, it’s usually a sign that it’s a very successful storytelling endeavor. I think The Flinstones’ hold music on the suicide hotline joke is the loudest I’ve shouted “holy shit” at a comic in a decade. Mark Russell is the best satirist working in comics right now, and certainly in the past decade. Steve Pugh was equal to the task of packing every joke and sly look and absurdity implied by the dialogue. The Flintstones is one of the funniest books you'll ever read.

read The Flintstones on Amazon

18. Atomic Robo & Other Strangeness

Brian Clevenger, Scott Wegener, Ronda Pattison (Webcomic)

I love Dr. Dinosaur. I will buy anything Dr. Dinosaur is in, contribute to any crowdfunding campaign that gets me Dr. Dinosaur goods, and I will take every opportunity I can to share that “the light is for ambiance” page.

Clevinger and Wegener have created a near-perfect, accessible, entertaining adventure story with Atomic Robo. The writing is smart and sharp and Wegener does some outstanding action sequences. I don’t think there’s any comic I’ve been dedicated to for longer - I think I’ve been regularly reading Robo longer than I’ve had Batman on my pull list - and there’s no comic I recommend more frequently. Other Strangeness has two amazing Dr. Dinosaur stories and Jenkins, but you can pick up any volume and get the same high quality action adventure comics.

read Atomic Robo here

17. The Private Eye

Brian K. Vaughan, Marcos Martin, Muntsa Vincente (Panel Syndicate)

Vaughan, Martin, and Vincente made a beautiful, compelling comic book that was uncomfortably prescient.

Sixty years from now, the cloud bursts - all of the private data stored on the cloud gets released to the public. It destroys lives and relationships, and triggers an anti-internet backlash. And an anti-journalist one. It then follows an unlicensed journalist as he travels around solving a mystery in a world where everyone wears masks to throw off facial recognition tech.

The Private Eye was cyberpunk that inverted some cyberpunk formulae - it was bright and warm and shiny, distrustful of tech and very human, but it was still a grimy near-future full of people navigating a world that sucked. It was an incredible read and one of the comics I think about most, even five years down the road.

read The Private Eye here

16. Secret Wars

Jonathan Hickman, Esad Ribic, Ive Svorcina (Marvel Comics)

I’m using Secret Wars as a stand in here for all of Hickman’s prior Marvel work from the decade, and really the entire story that started in Fantastic Four and paid off with the final Doom/Reed battle at the end of this story. “Epic” doesn’t even begin to describe a story that starts with the council of Reeds, breaks the Avengers, destroys the multiverse, then reforms it again out of a love of adventure. I reread these comics more than any in my collection because they’re beautiful and immersive and impossibly grand.

read Secret Wars on Amazon

  15. Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye

James Roberts, Alex Milne, Josh Burcham (IDW Publishing)

I still can’t believe how much I love this run of comics. I am even more flabbergasted at why: it was one of the most surprisingly thoughtful comics about sexuality and romantic relationships that I’ve ever read, and it came as part of a broader Transformers story (when paired with the story in Robots in Disguise) that had some of the best takes on gender identity and politics that I can remember.

Every word of that paragraph still makes no sense to me. I am continually delighted by this fact.

More Than Meets the Eye follows Rodimus and a group of breakaway Transformers as they search the universe for the lost Knights of Cybertron. It features a fascinating and touching relationship between Rewind and Chromedome (with Cyclonus as a third-wheel/homewrecker WHAT IS HAPPENING), and it has a deep dive into Ultra Magnus’s history as Cybertron’s premiere stick in the mud. Honestly, just take my word for it: this comic was incredible.

read Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye on Amazon

14. The Multiversity

Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely, Nathan Fairbairn & Others (DC Comics)

The Multiversity still contains my single favorite page of comic art from the decade: Frank Quitely breaking down Peacemaker kicking the hell out of a great lawn full of soldiers outside the White House. I can’t even begin to describe how technically fascinating that issue was or how breathtaking it still is to see. The rest of the series brought me great joy, but that issue might be the best single issue of comics I’ve read in the last 10 years.

read The Multiversity on Amazon

13. My Favorite Thing is Monsters

Emil Ferris (Fantagraphics)

Everything about Emil Ferris’ debut work is absurd. The production value of the book is stellar. Her deft storytelling made me feel literally dropped into the comic several times, overwhelming me by the world she brought me into. And that this was her first published work is still, what feels like an eon later, ridiculous to me. My Favorite Thing is Monsters will make you feel like a ten year old girl, whether you’ve ever been one before or not, and that is some magical work.

read My Favorite Thing is Monsters on Amazon

  12. Here

Richard McGuire (Pantheon Books)

Here started out as a comic strip in 1989, and got blown out into a full graphic novel in 2014, and both are incredibly interesting experiments with the form of comics storytelling. It sets the “camera” pointed at the corner of a room, and then spins time out in both directions, showing us what that corner looked like 2000 years in the past, hundreds of years in the future, in the 1950s, today, and a bunch of other times. And the way that McGuire manages to tell a coherent story under those restrictions is masterful work.

read Here on Amazon

11. Hellboy in Hell

Mike Mignola, Dave Stewart (Dark Horse Comics)

There’s something beautiful about Mignola spending 25 years weaving just about every mythological cosmology from human history together, and then ending that whole story by having Hellboy walk across Hell, into his childhood home, and just disappear. It’s a very quiet, peaceful ending for what had at times been a loud comic in the past, but it’s a beautiful end that refers back to other work of Mignola’s, which lends the ending a kind of peacefulness that cuts through the sadness of the loss of this story. Hellboy in Hell is a really great ending.

read Hellboy in Hell on Amazon

10. Thor: God of Thunder

Jason Aaron, Esad Ribic, Dean White & others (Marvel Comics)

There is actually some debate in my mind as to whether or not Jason Aaron’s Thor run, stretching from the stunning God of Thunder through The Mighty Thor and War of the Realms and into King Thor, is better than Walt Simonson’s Thor. It’s probably still Simonson’s run, but the fact that there’s an open question should tell you how good Aaron’s story has been. The best Thor stories have a bigger point than “Can Thor beat up the Hulk?” Aaron’s has been “What responsibilities does being a god bring with it; how do they carry them out; and how does that impact us?” It’s masterful work drawn by a collection of incredible artists.

read Thor: God of Thunder on Amazon

9. Saga

Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples (Image Comics)

The best thing about Saga to me is that the characters have grown with me. That’s not necessarily why it’s one of the ten best comics of the decade - Fiona Staples is an utterly incredible artist who without fail puts something singularly amazing into each issue - but it’s why I care about it so much. Hazel, Marko and Alana have all grown beautifully as characters since issue 1, and the world is so inventive and different from what you always get in science fiction that it’s a joy to read every time a new issue drops.

read Saga on Amazon

8. Richard Stark’s Parker: The Outfit

Donald Westlake, Darwyn Cooke (IDW Publishing)

Darwyn Cooke is one of the most talented people to ever work in the comics industry. He’s still, years after his passing, an enormous influence on how people conceive of the DC universe because of The New Frontier. But it’s his adaptations of Westlake’s ‘60s crime novels starring Parker that might be his best work. The Outfit is the second and my favorite, but all of them are amazing pieces of comics storytelling. Cooke’s storytelling techniques bounce all over the place, but all work amazingly well. He especially excels at showing complicated heists - the way Cooke plays with time and sequencing makes these books an amazing read.

read Richard Stark's Parker: The Outfit on Amazon

7. Prince of Cats

Ron Wimberly (Image Comics)

Wimberly’s Prince of Cats is pretty close to a perfect comic. Repurposing and adapting Shakespearean dialogue and patter to a hip hop aesthetic is, strangely, exactly what I want out of a story. Wimberly’s art is stylish as hell, with fantastic layouts and odd angles, and it is colored beautifully. It’s the story of Tybalt from Romeo and Juliet, but set in a city that’s a mishmosh of all five boroughs, in a time that’s anywhere from the mid ‘80s to present day. It’s a little bit Shakespearean tragedy, a little bit samurai anime, a little bit Planet Rock, and ultimately an amazing piece of comic book art.

read Prince of Cats on Amazon

6. The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl

Ryan North, Erica Henderson, Derek Charm, Rico Renzi & others (Marvel Comics)

I love how Unbeatable Squirrel Girl never talked down to readers, and in a wonderful example of what superhero comics could be (and occasionally were), how Doreen was always trying to find a way to solve problems that didn’t involve violence and would endure. Her supporting cast was terrific, guest characters were phenomenal, and Henderson has impeccable comic timing. And the book was surprisingly experimental and innovative - the zine issue and the choose your own adventure issue are two of the best single issues of comics I’ve read this decade, but even without them, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl will go down as one of my favorite comics of all time.

read The Unbeatable Squirrell Girl on Amazon

5. Hark! A Vagrant

Kate Beaton (Webcomic/Drawn & Quarterly)

Beaton is one of the smartest, funniest cartoonists out there. Hark! A Vagrant catches the best of the early decade webcomic ethos - it’s loose and fast, about anything and everything and just funny as hell. She’s got bits about Tesla, a ton of jokes about Austen and classic literature, idiot Victorian chimney sweeps. All of it lands because Beaton’s got a sharp eye and a strong voice for absurdity. I think my personal favorite remains Straw Feminists.

read Hark! a Vagrant here

4. Hip Hop Family Tree

Ed Piskor (Fantagraphics)

I’ve watched several documentaries since reading this and interrupted them, going “oh shit, I already knew this from Hip Hop Family Tree.” Piskor’s brief history of the birth and first couple of phase transitions of one of my favorite art forms is informative, smart, funny, and informed deeply by his love of comic book culture, which only enhances some of the stories he tells about early hip hop, which was also deeply informed by comics. And in retrospect, the fact that HHFT ended up circling back on superhero comics, giving us X-Men: Grand Design is too perfect for words.

read Hip Hop Family Tree on Amazon

3. Mister Miracle

Tom King, Mitch Gerads (DC Comics)

I’m pretty sure Mister Miracle is the best comic I’ve ever read as it came out. This is King and Gerads operating in peak form. Everything about it, from the content to the pacing to the characterization, was absolutely perfect. And the ambiguity of the ending, how it showed a way forward in dealing with trauma and how it inadvertently turned into a poignant love letter to the (at that time recently) departed old guard just made it all stick even harder. I loan this out to friends having kids, because I love Mister Miracle and I want everyone else to find their way to loving it, too.

read Mister Miracle on Amazon

2. Smile 

Raina Telgemeier (Graphix)

I came to Raina’s world late. I have a niece who’s brilliant, and I was looking for a way to get her into comics so I’d have someone at family gatherings to talk to about this stuff. I knew that these books were popular, so I grabbed one at a bookstore and started on it. Twenty minutes later, I was walking out of the store with Smile and Sisters, and my niece finished both of them in about six hours and started asking for more. Raina tells a hell of a story, and Smile deserves to be on this list just based on craft, but it’s this high because she’s single-handedly hooking a new generation into our favorite medium. I will always appreciate that.

read Smile on Amazon

1. March

Rep. John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell (Top Shelf Productions)

I don’t think I could have landed on a different comic here if I tried. March is a unique combination of craft, relevance, and timelessness. Powell’s art is staggeringly good, full of gorgeous storytelling. And when I think about moments from comics that have stuck with me the most, I keep coming back to the bombing of the Freedom Riders’ bus at the end of volume 1. I knew it was historical and that still scared the hell out of me. Kudos and thanks to Rep. Lewis, Aydin and Powell for making an incredible book.

read March on Amazon

Read and download the Den of Geek Lost in Space Special Edition Magazine right here!

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Dec 30, 2019

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[queensugardaily]

A Night in the Writer's Room - Drama (Westworld, Mr. Robot, Big Little Lies, Queen Sugar & More)

The creative minds behind some of the biggest dramas on television convened for Variety‘s A Night in the Writers’ Room to discuss how they came to their shows and how their networks have or have not pushed back when it comes to pushing boundaries.

The panel was comprised of David E. Kelley from HBO’s “Big Little Lies,” Ava DuVernay of OWN’s “Queen Sugar,” Jonathan Nolan from HBO’s “Westworld,” Graham Yost from Amazon’s “Sneaky Pete,” Jack Orman from NBC’s “Shades of Blue,” and Kyle Bradstreet from USA’s “Mr. Robot.”

For DuVernay, she didn’t so much chase after the source material for the show as much as OWN’s founder, Oprah Winfrey, insisted that she read it during a vacation at Winfrey’s home in Maui.

“While I was there, there was a book on the nightstand on the right hand side,” DuVernay said. “And there was a lot of books around because she’s really into books. Then the next night the book was on the right hand side and the left hand side. So I asked her, ‘Do you have something to do with this book?’ and she said, ‘Oh, yes.’ So she urged me to read the book. I read it on my flight home and called her and said, ‘Gosh, I thought it was really fascinating.’ My father is from the Deep South in Montgomery, Alabama, and it’s about a family where one of the main characters is in Los Angeles and the rest of her family is in Louisiana. So I felt like I could enter into it from her point of view.”

#variety magazine #ava duvernay #queen sugar #video

[studentsofshield]

Monday Recs for December 12, 2016 - Red Robin/Robin aka Tim Drake

More Details:

Tim is often considered by hardcore DC fans (between a certain age I guess) to be the greatest Robin. Dick works best in his Nightwing persona, Jason is an asshole twerp, and Damian is a lot more divisive and newer. 

Joker’s Wild is probably the most beloved story here. Most of Robin Vol 4 (his first ongoing) is pretty great. Chuck Dixon, the Batfamily mastermind of the 1990s and early 2000s, wrote it for a hundred issues straight. Just like all of Dixon’s work of the era, it’s highly enjoyable popcorn comics reading. There is no deconstruction or really innovative storytelling going on for the most part. Just slow burn character development and good action. That’s not to say there aren’t interesting developments and risky choices. Spoiler gets pregnant and Tim helps her deal with what to do. 

The book then had an iffy period for a while until Bill Willingham came on. Willingham is known for the Vertigo series Fables and had a period doing mainstream DC titles like Day of Vengeance, Shadowpact, and Justice Society. He wrote Robin from 121-147. This era included a major shake up when Stephanie Brown shortly became the fourth Robin and took over the title for a couple issues. 

Adam Beechen picked up the title in the One Year Later linewide initiative. His run featured stunning art from Freddie Williams and gave the book a bright and fun tone such as one might expect from Robin, the Boy Wonder. Beechen wrote 148-166.

Following a few crossover tie-ins, Dixon came back for an arc in 170-174. 

Fabian Nicieza then wrapped up the series until the finale in 183. Which transitioned into the Red Robin book. The first 12 issues of that book were written by Christopher Yost. Nicieza then returned to steer the ship until the New 52 canceled it at 26. The entire run is considered really underrated and significant in Tim’s development.

Which is a shame because the New 52 reboot basically destroyed Tim. He started out in a crappy costume and his connections to Bruce were iffy at best and nonsensical at worst. He’s been just barely fixed in Rebirth’s Detective Comics, but was then quickly taken away due to overarching plot issues. 

But, back to the safe confines of the pre-Flashpoint DCU. Tim also appeared in all of Peter David’s Young Justice series. This is where he developed his friendships with Superboy (Conner Kent), Impulse (Bart Allen), Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark), and others. 

This would continue into Geoff Johns’ relaunch of Teen Titans Vol 3 where Tim served as the field leader. Both of these runs are important to understand Tim’s leadership abilities and friendships with fellow teen heroes.

Collection Information:

Currently DC collects A Lonely Place of Dying alongside A Death in the Family, the demise of the former Robin, Jason Todd. So the first half of the book is somewhat irrelevant to Tim, but it still a great story and explains some of Bruce’s motivations moving forward. 

DC has recently been really fantastic about putting out nice thick collected editions of tons of 1990s Batfamily titles. Nightwing, Birds of Prey, Azrael, all of the Batman events. But relevant here is the new editions for Tim. Here’s a list of what is currently available:

-Robin Volume 1: Reborn (Detective Comics 618-621, Batman 455-457, Robin Vol 1 1-5) -Triumphant (Batman 465, 467-469, Robin Vol 2 1-4, Robin Vol 3 1-6) -Solo (Robin Vol 4 1-6)

PAD’s Young Justice and Johns’ Teen Titans are being recollected in thick paperbacks. Here are the first volumes of each:

-Young Justice Volume 1 (1-7) -Teen Titans Volume 1 (1-12)

Here’s hoping DC will keep up the pace on these lines of reprints. They have a knack for not doing so. But Tim Drake should be a guaranteed sell. 

While they’re at it, they should reprint Red Robin in one tidy omnibus or something. The four previous trades collecting the series are nearly impossible to find and not worth linking here. Go digging if you want to get your hands on them.

#Monday Recs #robin #batman #batman and robin #batman & robin #tim drake #young justice #teen titans #dc #dc comics #comics #comic books #reading order #reading guide #reading list

[movietvtechgeeks]

Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/hollywoods-tiny-dip-lgbt-pool-power-rangers-trini-sulu-lefou/

Hollywood's tiny dip into LGBT pool with 'Power Rangers' Trini, Sulu and LeFou

While many people love saying that Hollywood is so liberal, there are still many topics that make the major studios nervous. Now that a few high-profile studio movies have added gay characters to their mainstream films, they are expecting high praise for being so LGBT-inclusive. You actually see much more of that on television since the 90's, but Hollywood has always been slow in catching up to the trends. So exactly what are the big gay moments? A hug. A wink. A dance. A non-answer. Yup, that's it. From Sulu in "Star Trek Beyond" to LeFou in "Beauty and the Beast" and now Trini in "Power Rangers," the latest Hollywood fascination is the subtle nod that a once straight or undefined character is now or has always been gay. But it's often so subtle that if it wasn't first discussed by filmmakers or actors, it's a wonder whether anyone would notice at all. Sulu can be seen hugging a man. LeFou winks at Gaston and later dances with a man. And Trini fails to answer a flirty question about whether she's having "boyfriend problems"... or "girlfriend problems?" What are we to make of these "blink and you'll miss them" moments in a year when "Moonlight," with its explicit exploration of gay themes, can rise to become the best picture winner at the Academy Awards? Is this progress? For some, it is. For others, it's too much acclaim for too little action. Buzzfeed film critic Alison Willmore wrote an article on Wednesday exploring the "outsized credit" that Hollywood is getting for the recent "seriously small moments of LGBT inclusivity." "While, to be sure, even incremental progress should be celebrated - any forward movement is better than none - this is an incredibly unsatisfactory beat to go on to be widely disseminated as a breakthrough for inclusivity," Willmore wrote of the ambiguous "Power Rangers" moment. Not so ambiguous is how the film industry is lagging in LGBT representation, especially compared with strides that have been made in television. A 2016 report by the University of Southern California found that 82 of the 100 top movies of 2015 did not depict one LGBT speaking or named character. In a study by the gay advocacy group GLAAD of major studio releases in 2015, 17.5 percent contained characters identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender - a percentage that was unchanged from 2014. But even "Beauty and the Beast" director Bill Condon and many of his cast quickly retreated from previous comments about the film's "gay moment," saying the response had been "overblown." Hollywood might not be to blame for the dozens of articles that help to amplify small moments that are also socially significant firsts ("first gay superhero" and "first gay Disney character"). They're eminently clickable and part of the modern business model of internet news, especially as the public, actors and filmmakers weigh in. For GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis, however, the minor moments are "incredibly important," especially in major studio films with significant youth audiences. A film like "Moonlight," she noted, is an adult film that came out from an independent distributor and producer. "LGBT youth have a right to see their happily ever after, too," Ellis said. A recent exhaustive GLAAD study found that 20 percent of millennials identify as LGBT - a statistic she thinks might have contributed to social media movements like the #GiveElsaaGirlfriend and #GiveCaptainAmericaaBoyfriend campaigns. Ellis knows the "moments" are just a first step - she would like to eventually see LGBT protagonists in all-ages films - but for her, it shows that major studios, often too risk averse to change, are making an effort to test the waters. For years, writers, fans and LGBT scholars have enjoyed speculating about which Disney characters were secretly gay - from "The Lion King's" isolated bachelor Scar to the marriage-averse Merida from "Brave." But none have ever been outwardly confirmed as such. It's also noteworthy that all three recent gay-moment examples can be justified as tributes to the unsung gay history behind many of these stories. LGBT activist George Takei originated the character of Sulu. The late lyricist Howard Ashman wrote much of "Beauty and the Beast" while dying of AIDS and passed away before the film even came out. And, in the case of "Power Rangers," the original Blue Ranger David Yost left the series after being harassed for his sexual orientation. "There have been in the past these coded moments threaded through stories that we've seen on the big screen, but no studio has been big enough or bold enough to own those moments," Ellis said. "If you were part of the LGBT community or ultra-observant, you might pick up on it. But having the studio own it and not back down from it was a big move forward for us." From a business perspective, there was speculation that perhaps there could be a downside when reports emerged that a theater in Alabama was not going to show "Beauty and the Beast," and a few predominantly Muslim countries had pulled the film for review because of the gay moment. Then the film opened to a whopping $357.1 million globally. "I don't think it impacted Disney's bottom line one bit," said Paul Dergarabedian, a senior media analyst for comScore. In fact, he said the spotlight on LeFou likely benefited the movie in the end, creating buzz, awareness and a conversation. Ellis has observed that in just a few weeks, the tides have turned significantly. She saw some extremist anti-LGBT sentiments being thrown at "Beauty and the Beast," but now, with "Power Rangers," she's had trouble finding any backlash. It's the perfect scenario to prove their point that "inclusive content wins across the board." Ellis just hopes that studios are taking notice.

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