Scans_Daily

Whelp, last week sucked aside from that one bit of good news. On to the next one.


I almost completely forgot there was a debate to decide who would be the Republican Vice-Presidential candidate last week.

Watching Mike Pence kiss up to the people that tried to have him publicly murdered is the second saddest thing about the last VP. The saddest, of course, is that he was responsible for the deaths of so many of my fellow Hoosiers before taking the job.

(Also, is there something about being a right-wing politician that makes you unable to understand popular music? The musician in question may seem a bit confused on his messaging but there’s no way a career politician with any brains could listen to this and think they’re on the same side. They seem to do something like this at least once an election cycle. Remember how much Trump loved YMCA?)


Watching X-Guy do a tightrope act to appease his far-right “climate change is fake, actually” fans while taking government handouts for the electric car company he bought (sorry, “founded”) is probably the funniest thing about that deeply unfunny man.

Speaking of X-Guy, I was deeply confused when I saw this …
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/08/25/political-conspiracies-facebook-youtube-elon-musk/
…announcement that social media companies would stop acting as “watchdogs against conspiracy theories” because I wasn’t aware that it was ever something they were doing. Facebook signal-boosting insane conspiracy theories before the 2016 election is a big part of why we were stuck with Trump for four years and X-Guy seems to be either a conspiracy theorist himself or a troll who encourages them for attention.


TV:

I feel like I’d like Arcane better if I trusted Netflix to give us a second season (apparently it is being worked on but, well, it’s an animated show on Netflix). I do want to stress that I still enjoyed it because I think I can come off as overly negative at times. The characters are compelling and the animation is fantastic (especially in the fights).

I watched a 90s musical where Young Batman leads a strike against a major media company …so nothing topical there. I had a conversion last week about how media I enjoyed as a kid doesn’t always hold up well and this is (mostly) not the case here. There’s a lot to unpack rewatching Newsies as an adult (especially in 2023) and I don’t feel I have time to do it here.

“I Know What You Did Next Xmas” might be my favorite of the Hulu-era Futurama episodes … but me liking a Futurama holiday special is completely unsurprising.

This week we’re getting new episodes of Archer and the last season of Disenchantment.


Comics:

Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #12 – My most anticipated single-issue comic of 2023. It didn’t disappoint because it was also my favorite single-issue comic of 2023. We finally get to see the Robin/Supergirl date.

(I have never been more tempted to make an endless series of Dick jokes)

Nightwing #101 – Speaking of Dick jokes, I can’t wait for the Titans to get their own series so Nightwing can have his comic back. The only regular supporting character to appear in this issue is the dog. Not gonna comment on the Jon Kent backup because it just feels mean at this point.

Flash #793 – Irey continues to be the best character in this series.
(While I like most of the stuff I’ve read from Si Spurrier – especially under Vertigo - I’m kind of dreading the incoming creative team both because I like the current focus on the family and because Flash seems ill-suited to be a horror book)


Games:

The upcoming Hellboy: Web of Wyrd looks like an animated Mignola comic and that’s awesome. People who pay closer attention to this kind of thing than I do probably aren’t surprised because 2020’s West of Dead looks like an audition to make this game.


RE Snap

*Refreshes https://snap.fan/cards/SquirrelGirl/*
Nope, Squirrel Moon still isn’t actually a real Variant.
(I mean, she might be by now; I’m typing this bit Friday. I’m pretty sure these things get leaked well in advance, though)

Unlocks:

Various Twitch drops I mentioned in passing last Wednesday - I think Luca Claretti’s will be my default Sunspot…even though Nebula has technically been my default Sunspot for over a month. The Nightcrawler Avatar is one of the rare ones I might actually use.

Mech Devil Dinosaur Variant – Steam login bonus. Also mentioned late last Tuesday.

Mystery Variant - Steam login bonus. I guess I’ll know what this is after noon. Edit: it was Venomized Typhiod Mary.

(Really, I just have the Twitch/Steam stuff that everyone who participated got. I hoped to be well on my way to Conquest Wolverine but – despite earning one infinity ticket last night – I am struggling there. I may have a lot more variants soon if I’m forced to open my Reserves this weekend for the tickets/medals)

The weekend missions prompted a truly stupid thought; what if I built a deck around X-23 AND Devil Dinosaur? Yeah, that deck got deleted once I finished the X-23 mission. I do think Thanos did okay in bridging the gap between the two VERY different strategies these cards use. While not sharing as many strengths, they sure do share a lot of weakness and I have seen SO MANY Echoes, Enchantresses, ect (for Devil Dinosaur and X-23’s buddy Knull) and Cosmos (for all the destroy/copy cards that support X-23/Devil). And Armor…but she helps Devil and hurts X-23. Part of me thinks I should just embrace it and put Death and Super Skrull in completely unrelated decks because she’s probably going to be free and he’s probably going to be huge.

The thing about cards that can easily be countered (like X-23) is you don’t know how good they are until they become less popular. On the other hand, if Silver Samuria is big this week, then there’s going to be a lot of Stature, Blackbolt, and general Discard decks.

Next Season is going to be insane. I don’t know enough about the mechanics of Ravonna Renslayer or Loki to guess their impact but Alioth looks like he could be the next Leader and Mobius messes with SO MANY cards (Sera, Zabu, Wave, Quinjet, Stature, She-Hulk, Miles, Death, Sabretooth, Iceman, Beast, Mordo, and maybe some others I’m forgetting). Sure, no one actually uses Baron Mordo and Quinjet was nerfed into oblivion months ago but the others are all staples of various popular archetypes.

Next week is Shark Week.

https://youtu.be/qirUOkuHK8U?si=JdCgW6e89DVJ9yGA