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New Escapist Column! On “Into the Spider-Verse” as a Postmodern Superhero Remix…

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse this weekend, it seems like as good an opportunity as any to take a look back at Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

Into the Spider-Verse is arguably the best superhero movie of the previous decade. A large part of the film’s appeal is that it is a superhero movie built around the understanding that its audience has seen other superhero movies and understands the classic beats of the superhero origin story. As such, it can speed them up and slow them down, iterate over them and subvert them, using the audience’s familiarity to create a postmodern meditation on the very idea of Spider-Man.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Haven (Review)

To celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and also next year’s release of Star Trek: Into Darkness, I’m taking a look at the recent blu ray release of the first season, episode-by-episode. Check back daily for the latest review.

Haven is… not as terrible as I thought it would be. There have been select episodes I’ve been dreading on my re-watch of this awkward first season. I was right to fear Code of Honour. I had perhaps been a tiny bit too harsh on The Naked Now. I am quaking at the prospect of watching Angel One and Too Short a Season again. However, Haven wasn’t nearly as bad as I feared that it would be. Don’t get me wrong, it’s filled with plot holes and it is as dull as anything, but it’s not actively that bad. If it sounds like I’m damning with faint praise, then I probably am.

Safe Haven?

Safe Haven?

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