Catch more from Multiversal Wisdom on YouTube
This channel usually has two shows: Batman figuring out how to take down everyone in the multiverse (aka other media) and general reactions to characters or situations that may not be a threat to his version of Gotham City. This is something new and I hope the party behind this channel does more of these. It shows another side to Batman: one who wants to make things better, not just beat people up.
This may be the only decent article I get out this week due to…well, I put updates in the Jake & Leon comic posts for a reason.
Last chapter we separated the heroes from the villains. This chapter we’re checking in with the definite heroes.
We have a quarter of the book to go, but being one of the longer books means I’m out of ways to intro this. Good thing the series explanation takes up so much space. Let’s get just get into today’s chapter.
It’s another one of those useless information chapters. Unless pointing out the connection of the coaxial cable to the radio is going to factor into this story, and I doubt it since Chekov’s is the only gun we don’t seem to see talked about in this book, there’s no reason to go over all these details. I’m not planning to invade a former enemy turned potential ally to stop the return of communism anytime soon. Not in my condition. The end of the chapter has Squires remembering the period where he helped attempt to create new types of self-camouflaging uniforms and gear and how it didn’t quite work out. I’m betting that really isn’t going to come up later.
In between there is some new information as Rodgers calls to remind them of the limited time they have and to give us an update. Apparently Nikita has taken on civilians. I don’t remember Orlov giving his son those instructions, but it does make it harder to just go in there and get into the cargo. They’re going to have to clear the train and then look in the boxes, then get out in what little time they have without losing a Striker member. They also can’t just shoot the soldiers, which Rodgers calls “enemy soldiers” but are they? Nikita and his team haven’t signed on to the attempted restoration of the Soviet way and doesn’t even know about it. Op-Center and his dad are just figuring it out and nobody’s told him yet. Now if he signs on with Dogin and Rossky against his father, then he’s the bad guy and…sorry, Orlov, but your son gotta go down! If he sides with the good guys against the coup attempt, then he’s one of the good guys and you have another ally. Pardon the expression, but you’re jumping the gun here, Mike. Even us readers don’t know whose side Nikita will take.
Next time the rest of the mission reaches Russia. Will our heroes be able to meet up with Orlov Sr and stop Commie Op-Center from fulfilling that nickname? Stick around and find out.
I tried reading this on the Amazon Kindle browser reader and I guess they stopped using the ComiXology software. I couldn’t zoom in, couldn’t use the panel feature…why did they buy ComiXology? I had to go to the sites I get the Ultraverse comics from so I could read it.
“Whoever built this tunnel has no taste.”
The Phantom #0
Mad Cave (Free Comic Book Day 2025)
WRITER: Ray Fawkes
ARTIST: Russell Olson
LETTERER: Taylor Esposito
COVER ARTIST: Greg Smallwood
EDITOR: Chas! Pangburn
“Brave In The Sky”; song by Robin Agarwal
“Remember And Honor”, by McAfee & Taft
“Beneath The Flag”, song by Keith Klein Music
“Children Who Said Goodbye To Their Fallen Hero” by Reasons For Hope* Jesus
Take time today to remember those who died that we might live free. Even if you didn’t know anyone who fell in battle or military service, you live better because of their sacrifice. Have a happy and safe Memorial Day.
I wish I was kidding. No, I wish THEY were kidding.
Over at The Clutter Reports this week, due to what’s coming up during the week (namely more medical testing–yay, fun) I didn’t get any decluttering done as I tried to push to make sure there would be content here this week. So I posted a set of videos for streaming alternatives that allow you to actually own the media you purchased before the streaming owners lose the license or just censor it for the culture war.
I have the next Chapter By Chapter review of Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Mirror Image ready to go and I’m going to get the last of the Free Comic Book Day offerings (technically one of them is a Batman Day freebee) done, but as for the main articles beyond Chapter By Chapter I’m not sure. I may have to use videos. If not I still want them set up so I have them. My birthday is in two months and I have a goal of having enough “evergreen” articles in the backlog that you never know I’m taking a break. Seeing as I’m about to lose at least one day if not two I want to still have something. Whether or not that something includes the first “official” installment of the Doctor Who BBC Reports & Notes I don’t know yet. That’s planned for Fridays unless something else grabs my attention that week. So there will be some kind of post. I just don’t know what yet.
Speaking of the comic reviews, I have two more Free Comic Book Day comics and a Batman Day comic, all from DC. That’s three days. Amazon “ComiXology” has the Phantom comic from Mad Cave I missed out on, so that covers Thursday. On Friday I will return to the really old “Yesterday’s Comics”, but I don’t know if I’ll do the Golden Age anthology or Space Adventure just to get that over with and finish the Captain Atom stories for our pre-DC look. We have three comics from DC and the Phantom had a short DC run, so Captain Atom would at least form a theme, but there’s a lot of Golden Age comics to go through. We’ll see what I have time for. It will be an anthology either way.
I’ve also made a category under the BW prose stories just for my Transformers universe concept. I think I’m going to work on that, get the worldbuilding brain cells going. That will be updated whenever I have something to post. No release schedule on that one since I have other things to work on.
Have a great week regardless, everyone. There will still be good reasons to stop by and say hello.
Did you know Bewitched had a spinoff?
In 1977, the short-lived Tabitha followed the daughter of Samantha and Darren Stevens as she lived her adult wife, hid her witch powers, and worked at a TV station. Or a magazine. See there were two pilots, and both are very different.
In the original failed pilot, Tabitha Stevens worked as an “executive assistant” dealing with a mortal love interest like her mother while being bothered by her younger warlock brother Adam, who seemed to agree more with his grandmother in a dislike of mortals and living a “normal” life. In the second pilot that led to a one-season TV sitcom, pretty much everything is changed, including the actress playing Tabitha. The original pilot starred Liberty Williams as the grown-up Tabitha and Bruce Kimmel as her younger brother, Adam. It was not picked up but pilot writer William Asher would work on the series.
Said series apparently didn’t watch Bewitched before making the second pilot. Adam, who as someone that has watched maybe a handful of episodes in his lifetime I never knew existed, now has no powers and is Tabitha’s older brother, rectoning the original show. Nice job, guys. Instead he takes on his father’s position of trying to keep his now younger sister out of witchy mischief and nobody is trying to talk her into giving it all up, at least on the regular. Aunt Minerva apparently stops in now and then. Tabitha, now played by Lisa Hartman for the full series, is a production assistant at the same television station where her brother, now played by David Ankrum, also works. The show also is an early vehicle for Robert Urich, who my generation probably better knows from Vega$ and Spencer For Hire (the show where future space station captain Avery Brooks got his start).
Tonight I bring you both pilots. In the failed one, Tabitha tells her love interest that she’s a witch. Like mother, like daughter, while Adam keeps trying to tell her to leave all this mortal stuff. In the successful retcon-heavy pilot Tabitha is trying to get a guest for the show she works on. Which one do you think was the better one? Either way, enjoy.
This comic is offensive because it sucks, not just the depiction of the Obamas.
You would think that an exhibit called “License To Offend” would tell you what the exhibit is about, in this case cartoonists whose work is considered art by some and offensive to others. And yet despite knowing what they were getting into an exhibition in Surrey, England was allowed to go as far as private viewings before being told to shut it down for being offensive. Okay. This was reported on by The Spectator but with the full article behind the paywall we’ll have to trust Avi Green at Four Color Media Monitor and Bleeding Fool (the latter is easier to read) is being honest as to how dumb this is. You knew what you were getting into when you greenlit it, guys.
The Clutter Reports (my other site) Atop The Fourth Wall Crisis On Earth Prime Lean Into Artcast Bully Says “Comics Oughta Be Fun” Siskoid’s Blog of Geekery
Cartoon Hero’s Lair SF Debris Four Million Years Later
BW Media Spotlight 