Catch more from Hanes for Heroes on YouTube
Catch more episodes of Unpacked on the Second Wind YouTube channel.
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Chapter By Chapter (usually) features me reading one chapter of the selected book at a time and reviewing it as if I were reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as a read-along book club.
We were on the plague ridden science colony, and now we’re back on the Enterprise.
I hope this story gets to Nisus soon so I can start having some discussion material for these homepage intros. Maybe because this is a continuation of sorts to a book I’ve already gone all the way through, but right now I’m running out of spoilerless things to talk about way too early. That’s not the book’s fault, it’s just me versus the format for this series.
At least the background material we’re getting on new characters are important to understand the characters’ motivations. Compare it to the Op-Center novels reviewed thus far. The backstory there barely mattered to any of the proceedings. It didn’t affect motivation, it didn’t tie into the plot. Most of the time it was just showing off worldbuilding and history, then blending the two as those books took place slightly into the future of when they were released. That felt more like padding and strutting while the info we’ve gotten here feels more like potentially important information to understand the people involved.
With that in mind, we move to chapter nine and see how things are progressing. Hopefully we’re picking up our passengers now.
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In addition to a new game, there’s also an anime for the series. All we know for now is that it exists. Maybe it will help untangle some of the mess that is Kingdom Hearts lore. Or maybe it will make it worse, given this franchise. Considering Square Enix seems to do a better job with Disney properties than Disney is right now, I’m curious to see what’s coming.
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Bill’s a good day. Knows how to use his connections.
Apparently we were supposed to lose gravity for a few seconds on Wednesday. All we got was an eclipse (a rather minor one in our skies) and a planetary alignment I think. Fine by me. This week’s Clutter Report was about me cleaning up one pile of VHS tapes in front of my pinball machine and the junk underneath it. Imagine how much clean-up I’d have to do if we lost gravity. Especially if that included the house itself.
Instead it’s the next Chapter By Chapter review of Star Trek: The IDIC Epidemic and whatever else comes up this week. One less article a day has hurt the view count but it’s given me time to do other things, and I’m still doing comic reviews. Just not every weekday like I was. I kind of miss it but it’s hard to do reviews when you have nothing to review except comics that take forever to review. Hope you’re still enjoying the Sunday Golden Age anthology reviews.
Have a great week, everybody!
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I see some form of road rage still exists in the future.
Mystery Men Comics #9
Fox Publications, Inc (April, 1940)
I don’t have to look at the old reviews on this one. I know there are enough stories here to keep me reading. It makes me wonder why Fox Publications had to sell off their titles for a while, and it’s a shame that, at least with the Blue Beetle comics, they couldn’t reclaim the same writers. Those stories were terrible, but the original Fox run was darn good. Let’s see if that continues this issue.
BW Media Spotlight 
Why I’m Not Interested In The (Greenless) Lanterns Show
If you don’t follow my X-Twitter account, and I’m betting you don’t, I was considering watching the first episode of Lanterns. I’ll be honest, if I had the livestreaming thing going I might just for the conversation. Ultimately I decided that I really don’t want to watch it, and opted to pass. It’s rare I get to review something in my wheelhouse when it drops since so much is behind paywalls these days. We only have HBO Max because my dad wants access to Discovery’s programs (particularly shows like Restaurant Impossible and Moonshiners) as well as older movies, as he has less interest in new movies and shows than I do. I just turned 53 last month, so you can guess how old he is.
I do reject the recent idea that watching something you know is bad just to review it is somehow foolish or grifting. Meanwhile, even when I admit I’m going by reviews both praising and negative, or just the promotional material–the thing that’s supposed to get you excited for the project–, someone is going to complain that I didn’t watch it. What’s really going on, to me, is that some people don’t want to hear any negative reviews. Some reasons are understandable and some are just dumb, but that’s a discussion for another time.
As for this series, I read review from a site that would ordinarily be on the “hater” list say that on its own merits the show was okay, though it didn’t sound like it was the same genre as the source material. You know, the comics. Someone on X-Twitter even tried to defend the show from people upset that Hal Jordan was out of character by saying “this Hal is different”, and refusing to understand that’s the problem. The lore is wrong, the characters are wrong, the genre is wrong. I don’t even mind that the show isn’t set in space. That would be a serious budget issue for live-action and they’d never be as believable as they are in comics or cartoons because they’d try to make it realistic to match the live-action presentation. Animation’s benefit is that you can make a world that’s believable without being “real”.
Since the promotional material, the ads and interviews, are supposed to help you decide whether or not to watch something, it’s all done the exact opposite for me for a bunch of reasons. I don’t care that it’s good. It’s not what I’m looking for. Allow me to explain…otherwise why are you reading this?
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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on August 18, 2026 in DC Spotlight, Streaming Spotlight and tagged commentary, DC Gunnverse, Green Lantern, Hal Jordan, John Stewart, Lanterns (HBO Max).
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