That’s Not Really How It Works!: Civics And The Fictional Presidency

We all know the story about the timing of the issue that featured this panel, right?

I greatly enjoy DC Comics’ Showcase Presents series of black and white reprints.  Sometimes they feature obscure characters, or just stories that would be far too expensive to hunt down the original comics in order to read, and at the price of below $15 each, the 500+ pages are generally worth it.  Besides, sometimes there’s some outright screwiness going on.  Take the original appearance of longtime foe of the Aton the Floronic Man, Jason Woodroe.  At the end of the issue, there’s a quick courtroom scene where a judge states that he is going to be handling certain procedures before Woodroe can be hauled off to a federal court for the crime of attempting to take over the world.

This tickles me for the very implications of what that panel suggests, namely that in that universe, the United States Congress proposed, debated, voted on, and passed a bill outlawing attempted world conquest.  Said law was then signed by a president.  I am sure for the juvenile readers of the original stories, this doesn’t seem too wild, but really, that’s the sort of thing that really catches my attention.

That said, let’s look at some fictional presidents.

Ryan’s Ten Worst Movies of 2014

I love going to the movies. There is nothing better than a nice Alamo Drafthouse theater (where you will shut the hell up or you will get thrown the hell out) going dark and a good story being shown for an average of 118 minutes.

Unfortunately, they aren’t all good stories.  I didn’t see half as many new movies as Watson did so that’s why he got to run down his Worst 20 Movies of the Year.  Me, I’m only going to rant about the ten worst movies I saw this past year.  Brace yourself.

Expand the Best Acting Categories to Ten Nominations? No, Thank You!

You Get an Oscar! YOU Get an Oscar! YOU GET AN OSCAR! Sorry…. not you, Leonardo DiCaprio….

Peter Hammond of Deadline.com poses the question, “Should there be 10 slots for the acting categories?”  In all fairness to Mr. Hammond, who is quite astute in his assessment of the field, he does acknowledge that readers will come after him for his opinion.  It almost makes me want to avoid criticizing him, as I appreciate self-awareness.