Beast Machine Hunters> The First Season Guide part 8

Last time on Beast Machine Hunters we took a tour of Beast Machines Cybertron. Based on a quick skim I think we’re on our last three installments of the season one guide before moving on to season 2 to see what’s different. Depending on what’s kept between writer guides that may be a short one.

This time we’re looking into deeper concepts of the Beast Wars/Machine world. We’re talking how technorganic transformation works, what technorganics are, the way this show tells time on Cybertron, and how the two shows differ from each other. Next time we go over the intended episodes and plans for season two and other details to follow. So far it’s been interesting to see what the intentions were versus what we (or at least I) thought were changes as well as what the final product changed. Now we get into the real worldbuilding, the minor details that make a world seem lived in, but without getting so detailed that it stops being fun. It begins with the new form of transformation.

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“Yesterday’s” Comic> The Blue Beetle #37

Basically this series is now “Blue Beetle endangers children” in a way sidekick haters only joked about.

The Blue Beetle #37

Fox Features Publications (Spring, 1945)

I’m not quite as disappointed as I was during the Holyoke run because I can get one or two stories that work. Unfortunately the bad keeps outweighing the good, and with an anthology like this one gets the impression they were just tossing ideas out there. Longer stories might have been the way to go. Well, this issue has three stories, no O’Brine Twins, the usual bonuses, but no sign of the serial. I haven’t read it yet but it’s already feeling more like an annual or a secondary issue, but it’s continuing the same number trend. Numbering in the 1940s was weird, so who knows? Hey, I can go a week without Gloat and Saturina.

[Read along with me here]

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BW’s Daily Video> Is Santa Claus In The DCAU?

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Sing Me A Christmas Story> Driving Home For Christmas

logo for the Sing Me A Story article series

I’m finding I’m running low on Christmas songs that are narratives. Most Christmas music speaks to the moment rather than tells a story. I was thinking “I Saw Three Ships” but I already did that. Luckily for me I thought of one: Chris Rea’s 1978 classic “Driving Home For Christmas.

What’s that, you say? You didn’t think the song was that old? Well, that’s when he wrote it. It wouldn’t appear in the world until the B-side single off of his 1988 album New Light Through Old Windows, the a-side belonging to “Hello, Friend”. While not as popular on the original release (the B-side rarely gets fame: see also the underappreciated “Captain Santa Claus & His Reindeer Space Patrol“, which I made a Captain Yuletide story out of) it has gone on to be the one you know, and is even part of my Christmas music “Yule Log” playlist here at the Spotlight. So what is the tale of this recent classic?

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“Yesterday’s” Comic> Star Power #19

Artist’s interpretation of social media, 2023.

Star Power #19

(June, 2017)

“Star Power And The Last Jump Gate” part 4

WRITER: Michael Terracciano

ARTIST: Garth Graham

[Read along with me here]

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BW’s Daily Video> A Short Lived DnD Edge Lord

Note: minor swearing and a dude ripped apart in animation, but not all that gory.

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6 Amazing Heroes…In A Wheelchair

You know, just when I start to settle in to the current level of stupidity coming out of the entertainment industry someone comes up with something even stupider to say. For example, Russell T. Davies tells us that he and his staff were insistent upon giving Davros an unmutated body because they were concerned their audience would equate being in a wheelchair with being evil. You know, instead of brilliant scientist going mad after experiments mutated his body into a half-Dalek, thus inspiring him to create full Daleks. You know, the blobs that were once people but are still Nazis. So…barely people.

This is as dumb as Bad Wolf Productions seems to think their audience are. In the history of fiction I have to fight to recall three villains in a wheelchair. On the other hand, I could use kids shows alone to go over a bunch of wheelchair bound guest, main, and recurring characters who have fought for the forces of good, or at least helped in some way or were nice to other people. I wanted to limit myself to five, but a sixth insisted they get talked about. So here you go; six wheelchair bound heroes that were done because they could be good in a story as much as to show the handicapped/handicapable/whatever this month’s term is can still be cool.

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