(The New?) DC TV Report for the week ending 1/22/2021

[Note to readers: Despite the decision to end The DC TV REPORT podcast, it seems that's not going to stop Ed O'Hare from creating his episode notes every week. He insists that this website post those notes weekly or things may, as he puts it, "have to get serious".]

This is the DC TV Report for the week ending Saturday January 23rd, 2020. I'm here to bring you recaps, news and commentary for all live-action television shows based on DC Comics. There was 1 new episodes this week including a premiere.

Batwoman Season 2 Premiere: "What Happened to Kate Kane?" 1) After a plane supposedly carrying Kate Kane as a passenger crashed on the shores of Gotham, the Bat-suit was recovered by Ryan Wilder, a falsely convicted ex-con living out of her van and looking for justice for the murder of her adoptive mother. 2) Tommy Elliot's Bruce Wayne face fooled Luke into letting Tommy into the Batcave and giving him the Kryptonite shard. 3) A grief-stricken Jacob was given a tip about Alice's whereabouts. 4) Sophie told Julia her suspicions that the plane crash may involve Safiyah. Last Minute Reveal: After giving up the Bat-suit, Ryan sat on top her van, talked to her plant and noticed the Kryptonite bullet wound in her shoulder looked infected!

Ed's Winner for the Week: Ryan Wilder - Despite my reservations about the decision to not recast Kate Kane, Javicia Leslie delivered an engaging performance and I found myself highly intrigued to see this new character's story play out. The test will be whether or not it gels with all the other narrative elements left hanging from season 1.

 

News:

The Flash season 7 delayed thanks to Superman & Lois https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/a35281474/the-flash-season-7-delayed-superman-and-lois/

The Flash Star Danielle Panabaker Shows Off Their Season 7 Gift

https://bleedingcool.com/tv/the-flash-star-danielle-panabaker-shows-off-their-season-7-gift/

Superman & Lois return to Smallville in epic new trailer

https://ew.com/tv/superman-lois-first-trailer/

DC'S LEGENDS OF TOMORROW WENT FROM FORGETTABLE SPIN-OFF TO THE ARROWVERSE'S BEST SHOW BY GETTING WEIRD

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/legends-of-tomorrow-arrowverse-best-show-evolution

Titans has found its Barbara Gordon for season 3

https://ew.com/tv/titans-casts-savannah-welch-in-season-3/

Titans' Former Robin Kicks Back in His Red Hood Costume

https://www.cbr.com/titans-red-hood-costume-new-look/

How Doom Patrol creates a unique look for each character

https://ew.com/tv/doom-patrol-season-2-behind-the-scenes-makeup-clip/

Lucifer Season 5 Return Not on Netflix's February Calendar (For Now?)

https://bleedingcool.com/tv/lucifer-season-5-return-not-on-netflixs-february-calendar-for-now/

Y: The Last Man: Eliza Clark & "Friend" Signal Return to Production

https://news.google.com/search?q=Y%3A%20The%20Last%20Man%20tv%20when%3A7d&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen

WTPC Ep. 18 - Comics Cavalcade 2

Our rundown of current comics returns!

• But first Bill forgets to introduce Dom And Bob, as they set up a no-cursing game - how long will Bill go without dropping a F-bomb? 
• Then, E-mail failure! 
• Up next, news: Preacher, Flash, and Jessica Jones! 
• Then we talk about the comic books we've been reading: Letter 44, Batman, Outcast, Star Wars: Shattered Empire, Headloper, Starve, Savior, Suiciders, Bitch Planet, Injection, and more! And we tease The Paybacks! 
• We close by asking you for help with a mascot?

Regular listener? We want to hear from you! Reach out! Email us! Podcast@wickedtheory.com

Wicked Theory Podcast Ep 9 San Diago Comic-Con 2015 RECAP!

The upfront banter: We discuss/recomend The Sixth Gun and Locke And Key! Dom gets a call from the comic shop? Then we cover recent news of Aunt Marisa To-May, Director Batbenfleck, Bernthal Punisher spotted!

Then we hit the San Diego Comic-Con news including: Wytches, Batman Vs Superman, Killing Joke Animated, Vixen, Star Wars BTS vid, Green Arrow and Flash, Fear The Walking Dead, Regular Walking Dead, Snipes & Blade, Grant Morrison & Heavy Metal and more!

WTPC Ep.8: Current Comics Cavalcade

It's an all comic book episode covering current and upcoming titles!

Fresh from the comic shop (and meeting Cullen Bunn) Dom and Bill go over their Wednesday haul! We Stand On Guard, Outcast, Airboy and more! Then the boys breakdown the highlights of Marvel's big announcement of 45 new books coming next October after Secret Wars wraps.

Then we also preview some books coming out next week: Infection, Savior, Civil War, Secret Wars and more! Finally we give a strong recommendation and special spotlight to Letter 44 by Charles Soule!

The Wicked Theory Podcast is here! Three Episodes Of Nerdness!

The Wicked Theory Podcast has landed! And to kick of the launch I'm dropping 3 episodes! Don't gimmie that look! Yes, it leans to the geek, but hey, who's not watching Game Of Thrones, right? All I do is talk about this stuff all the time with my friends and co-workers, now I've put a mic to it. Scary right? And, hey, we've got Brother Bob on guitar, how's that sound?

Each week, my co-host Dom and I are going to discuss and dissect the entertainment that entertains us, in hopes you will be entertained as well. TV, Movies, Comics, and guests and games and ways for listeners to get involved and more. We're keeping it fun and we hope you have at least at little fun listening. Not too much though, we don't want you to get hurt.

I'll apologize now, the audio does get better.
Won't lie, sorry, but I curse a lot, so: NSFW WARNING.

Below. there are three episodes waiting for you:
In Ep1 we burn through a bunch of geek stuff we've been itching to talk about and give a big recommendation!
Ep 2 we blast through thoughts on comic book movies, past, present, and coming.
Ep 3 is kind of our first real one as we bring in our buddy Brian and talk about Game Of Thrones!

Show page on Libsyn is here or here.

Thanks for listening!

Send email to the show: Podcast@WickedTheory.com

Disclaimer: The WTPC is an ongoing experiment and it ain't perfect… but... we're getting better… I think.

Not All Human Torch Haters Are Racist: The Black Comic Nerd Perspective

 Guest Editorial by Tango Jordan

Actor Michael B. Jordan addressed some of the racist things said about his casting as the Human Torch in the Fantastic Four deboot (yeah, I'm going with that, it's a new word that works in this instance) about to be released by 20th Century Fox and offered some advice to the fans. It pretty much fell in line with the sentiments echoed by Adam Orth, former Microsoft employee who famously offered this advice about the criticism over XBox One always-on connectivity:

"Get Over It."

    Trust me, with everything that's going on in the world today, every time I open my Facebook page I'm very aware of the racist trolls out there and the things they will say. I recently posted about the reception of Obama to Twitter and I had trolls coming to my page to outline how Democrats have said "racist" things too, which is just the stupidest response of tit-for-tat you could imagine. With all that being said, though, I'm not letting Michael B. Jordan off the hook with that one: not everyone's objections are racist in nature, and as a Black Nerd, I think I have a responsibility to provide a counterpoint to this...

A Stranger Conversation I Had

Captures my likeness exactly.

Want to hear me ramble on about myself?

Well, it's actually better than that sounds.

I had a chat with Grant from The Stranger Conversations podcast and he was crazy enough to post it!  I discuss all my marginal accomplishments, family stuff, creative endeavors, geek stuff and more.

Listen with feigned interest as I try and talk about my home town as if I really keep up with that stuff. Be passably amazed as I regale about the time I was on TV (full story here)! Be relatively unsurprised as I mention that I shoplifted comics as a kid (more about that here)! Imagine in your mind as I badly describe my own artwork (or just go look at it here)!

In all seriousness, I had a great time and a lot of laughs. Grant has a real knack for asking on point follow up questions and puts together a really excellent podcast about people you don't know.

See, he doesn't know them either, but before every episode is over they have shared more then they, or you, might have expected. Good stuff every episode, check it out.

Listen here: Episode 10: Bill Sweeney

Confession Of A Childhood Comic Book Shoplifter

By Bill Sweeney

Gather 'round kids, and come with me now as I relive a small and embarrassing chapter of my life I should probably just leave forgotten. A tale of friendship, greed and stupidity, but mostly greed. A tale from a weird, bygone era known as "the mid-eighties", long before the over-proliferation of security cameras we have today, it's the story of when I turned into a bit of a shoplifter.

I was in the sixth grade when a few friends who lived outside my immediate neighborhood and myself got real bored one afternoon and somebody said "let's go down to the Plaza and steal some action figures." Wasn't my idea because I'd never done that, but they sure had because instantly they all latched onto the plan. Action figures and toys were kind of fading out of interest for me, but these were my nerdier, geekier friends so it didn't really seem odd as far as that goes (these are the same kids who I would end up playing Dungeons and Dragons with for the first time, if that helps paint the picture). But the stealing aspect, that was new. Quickly though, any real thought about it was dismissed by their confidence from having done it before. And it turns out they had a different approach then I had envisioned once we got inside the 5 And Dime store.

They just ripped the figure out of the package, grabbed the little accessories, and then just tossed the cardboard and plastic back on a shelf...

10 Things You'll NEVER Hear Galactus Say...

By Bill Sweeney

Galactus, Marvel's ever-hungry devourer of worlds, is a giant cosmic being who basically just floats around space until he gets hungry. Then he sends out his herald, the Silver Surfer, to find delicious, gluten-free planets for him to munch on. I'm sure there's plenty of stuff he talks about that we aren't privy to, so here's 10 things you'll NEVER hear him say... but he probably does.

1. "Dude, don't go in there, I totally blew it up."

2. "Doctor says I'm eating too much of the red planets."

3. "Let's eat somewhere else, I had some Andromeda System yesterday."

4. "NORRIN! If I trip over this board one more time...!"

5. "Truth is, I'm starving all the time... *sniff* ....for attention. I don't even like the taste of planets!"

6. "... I mean, hey, they're cool and all, but "Fantastic"? Seems a little pompous to just label yourself like that."

7. "Surfer! Your new quest is to find me some fine ass bitches, for it is lonely and cold out here, son!"

8. "I think the buffet was a bad idea."

9. "FOOL! Do not speak to me of your infinitesimal woes! Do you have any idea how much I spend on toilet paper!?"

10. "Be honest, does this hat make my head look big?"

Comics Review: UP THE RIVER 2130 #1

 By Bill Sweeney


Up The River 2130 #1
Written by Travis McIntire
Illustrated by Michael Wren
21 pages Full Color 
Horror

Available from IndyPlanet


Up The River brings together interesting elements from horror and superheroes to form a world where everything went wrong a long time ago and it never really recovered. A world where water has turned red as blood and to drink it will either turn you into the living dead or imbue you with fantastic abilities.

Quite the temptation.

With world building that shows our planet (or region, at least) suffering from societal breakdown, Up The River, presents us the story of Syl, a young man searching for answers.

Shedding Light On AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D: Why It's Losing The Battle

By Bill Sweeney
additional reporting by Notsocrazy

This show is so "meh", I'm using an image from the Captain America sequel.

ABC's Agents of S.H.E.I.L.D. is loosing viewers almost as fast as the Titanic lost passengers. Personally, I don't blame them for jumping ship, I haven't been this let down by a show since "Al Capone's Vault".  The LATimes recently ran a piece by Ryan Faughnder about just how badly things have gotten for the show in terms of ratings:

"Counting only people who watch on the day of first airing, "S.H.I.E.L.D." has lost about 40% of its total audience and half of its viewers ages 18 to 49, the demographic most cherished by advertisers."

"The Nov. 5 episode of "S.H.I.E.L.D." generated a rating of 3.7 among viewers ages 18 to 49 in the live-plus-three-days category, but that still represents a 42% slide from the premiere."

But wait! A marginal tie to to the Thor sequel swooped in and gave the show an uptick that had Motly Fool's Steve Symington wondering if this was a crossover success:

"Thanks largely to interest in the tie-in with its big screen counterpart, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. successfully broke its seven-week ratings downtrend by garnering 6.89 million live viewers and a 2.4 rating in the overall 18-49 demographic. And while the show only managed to increase its total viewership by 1% over last week, it gained a much more impressive 5% in the key adult 18-49 demographic."

After seeing that episode myself, I don't know that returning fans were likely to be impressed enough to have faith in such crossovers. The fact is, a lot of people are wondering where are all the fan-geeks are going, as if you can throw sub-par product at them and they'll just eat it up. When even the nerdiest of geeklings of Marvel fandom are fleeing a perceived "easy win" like this, it's time to take a real hard look.

If you want a clearer picture of why fans have left the show, the reasons are plentiful, I'll tell you as many as I can from the view point of fan of not only comics but TV as well. A in-depth fan-alysis, if you will...

Ex-X-Man: Wolverine Joins The Bad Guys

LOGAN IS TURNING HEEL!

Marvel has announced that Paul Cornell and Ryan Stegman will relaunch Wolverine after the current arc, "Killable" wraps up and it seems Logan's just wants to take it easy and slow things down a bit... by joining a group of villains?

Cornell says:

• The first arc is called “Payback,” and that’s where we find him: working for a crime boss called The Offer, alongside a “family” of low-rent super villains. Following the end of “Killable,” he’s decided to simplify his life and drop his responsibilities.
• He's now carrying a pair of handguns, and fighting hand-to-hand in a different way. He will indeed be using the claws less frequently.
• The Offer is a minor super villain gang boss who has the power to make the best possible offer. It's not hypnotism; you're free to turn him down. But his offers tend to make people think twice. He's a caring, fatherly presence to his gang, but he's not really a good man.
• His gang includes Pinch, who Logan is in a relationship with, who can pull threads from any material; Fuel, who increases powers, and thus can make Logan move at high speed; and the Lost Boy, who can make anything ignite, and who has a complicated attitude towards what heroism and villainy might be. Logan worries about him.
• I don't think we should be afraid of liking The Offer, Pinch, Fuel, Marcy and the Lost Boy, Logan's teammates now that he's a minor-league super villain. This series is going to look into what it means to be a "villain" and how those guys think of themselves. Logan finds a real comradeship there, and a release—and a relationship.

He dodges the lingering question of Logan's mortality/healing factor, but all signs are pointing to that being out of play for a while.

This whole idea implies, of course, that Mr. Muttonchops will be out of The X-Teams and Avengers. (If he's still in those books, on those teams, I'm gonna start breaking things.)

So kids, what do you think of this WWE style, "Hero Turns Bad" idea?

Who Cries For The Humans of Marvel?

Be vigilant humans of Earth, I'm thinking of you.

As if the Marvel Universe didn’t have enough super-powered people running around, from out of the Terrigen Mists comes a whole new class of powerful people.
 
I know, I know, you remember when Marvel was like “We got too many mutants, let’s drop it to around 200. Kill ‘em ALLLLLL!”

So, why start another class of ultra humans? Why now?

See chums, The Marvel Movie-verse needs their own “born-gifted” types and mutants are locked in at FOX for the long haul. And since the Inhumans are part of Marvel’s long term, overall Movie-verse plans, why the hell not?

So, starting soon in their comics. Marvel will be painting these new “freaks” in a similar outcast, discriminated-against manner as mutants and The X-Men.

And as much as this news is great for fans of Inhumans, it's the regular humans of Marvel who I can't stop thinking about...

You Know They Used To Burn Comic Books, Right?

In a period of America’s history when fear and paranoia spread easily, there was an outcry for an explanation for the rise in “troubled” children. Truancy, gang activity and many other forms of Juvenile Delinquency, were “rampant” and parents were starved and desperate for answers.

Then, in 1954, along came a book called SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT that fanned these flames, finding the fault and blame in the pages of Comic Books. It was written by a psychiatrist, Dr. Fredric Wertham, it had to be true, right?

Congressional hearings were held. Book burnings were held.



Public opinion on the art form dived and comics quickly became the scourge responsible for bad kids everywhere. Eventually, this would give way to the Comics Code Authority, a precursor to the self-censoring that found it’s way into movies, music and video games.

These events, destroyed the lives and careers of many writers, artists, publishers and nearly destroyed an industry and an American art form.

While the findings in the book have been suspect for many years, new evidence has come to show that Wertham consistently LIED, COVERED UP and MISREPRESENTED the truth.

University of Illinois assistant professor Carol L. Tilley has taken a closer look at Wertham’s files and research and has found many inconsistencies. The Illinois News Bureau reports about her findings:

 
“For example, in “Seduction,” Wertham links “Batman” comic books to the case of a 13-year-old boy on probation and receiving counseling for sexual abuse of another boy: “Like many other homo-erotically inclined children, he was a special devotee of Batman: ‘Sometimes I read them over and over again. … It could be that Batman did something with Robin like I did with the younger boy.’ ”

What Tilley found in Wertham’s notes, however, was that the boy preferred “Superman,” “Crime Does Not Pay” and “war comics” over “Batman,” and that he had previously been sexually assaulted by the other boy – all information that Wertham left out.”

Much more:

Bleedingcool.com has a brief overview here.

READ The Illinois News Bureau full article here.

FRESH POP - 1/30/13

Welcome to our daily rundown of Pop Culturey News web links. From the geeky to the cheeky, from insane to mundane, foolish to cool-ish, we're serving it up fresh, just for you...

Today: Superman and Wonder Woman Getting Busy, Bigger Entourage, Nabors is out, Waltzing at SNL, DC Comics is like WTF, Miley Cyrus turns Papp, Video Game Secrets Revealed, Spoliery Iron Man Rumors, Powerpuff Relaunch, Willow Out - Jay Z Still In Annie and MORE!!!

FRESH POP - 1/24/13

Welcome back to our daily rundown of Pop News web links. We scoured the internet just to find pop culture related info that you might have missed while you were busy living life. From the geeky to the cheeky, from insane to mundane, foolish to cool-ish, we're serving it up fresh, just for you...

Today: JJ doing STAR WARS, See Ashton's Jobs, Rob Liefield wants Kirk, Goodbye G4, Inigo Montoya Flies, Justice League of Unsureness, Leprechaun WWE Style, The Office Camera, Darth Maul goes to Jail and More!

IRON MAN 3 - First Trailer!

Shellhead's flying back into theaters next year and here's the first good look at what to expect. Pepper's back and in harms way because that what superhero girlfriends do. War Machine has gotten The Iron Patriot paint job. Oooo, there's Guy Pierce. Ben Kingsly's let his hair get all nappy as we finally get Hollywood's version The Mandarin. We see he has the Ten Rings he's known for. If their origin remains unchanged from the comics, one has to wonder if Marvel stalled on introducing him until they established the alien aspects of its movie universe. And if they do hold onto that, does this aspect somehow help tie into the cosmic nature teased for The Avengers 2: More Vengier?

Comic Review: THE GREAT UNKNOWN #1

By Bill Sweeney

Small Batch Comics is a new, creator owned, non-profit comic publisher featuring only the work of previously unpublished talent. Born from one of the many sub-levels of the vast and growing structure that is Reddit. com, this new indie voice has a clear message and ideal that could have only sprung from our current times of wide spread technological socialization and collaboration. It's a bold move in this uncertain comics market, but bravery and earnestness are rare and should be rewarded.

Enough about them (you can learn more about them here and submit your own stuff here), let's take a look at their first book, THE GREAT UNKNOWN,  a FREE an anthology that seems to have a bit of everything from Nazi Scientists to Ancient Astronauts to Deep Space Action...

A Master Plan For The Future Of THE BATMAN Movie Franchise. For Free.

Y'know, if Warner Brothers likes free stuff...

Now that Christopher Nolan's reign of Gotham is complete, the question that's already been lying on the table is "What's next for Bruce and the Cowl?" because, as The Amazing Sider-Man reboot has shown, starting over is a sticky wicket.

But I have a solution that I'm offering free of charge to those Powers That Be should they choose to take advantage of my idea...

Video: THE DARK KINGHT RISES (alternate) ENDING LEAKED!

Very alternate indeed.

This is fairly NSFW. Possibly even NSFL. And certainly Not Safe For Kids. I don't want to give too much more away, and since you can see it's from FunnyOrDie, you now know all you really need to. We'll discuss after you decide whether or not to watch the video...

DARK KNIGHT RISES ENDING LEAKED!!!!! - watch more funny videos     

Ok, so, over-the-top-vulgarocity aside, there are gems in this, no? The mumble-garble of Bane, the in-theater noises and whispers, but mostly, it's that until a certain point it seems like it's just a shitty bootleg of the actual movie... and then it goes downhill from the teabag on. So is it too much? NBD? Tell us what you think in the comments.

Oh, I get it now...
Leaked.