Future Foundation is pretty much the definitive modern F4 story. Hickmens run as a whole is peak.

A problem with the F4 is that their golden age of stories was back in the Silver Age of Comic Books. They were a cornerstone a lot of the early world-building of the Marvel Universe. Their lasting legacy has been the characters and ideas these stories introduced to the Marvel universe: Dr Doom, Galactus, The Silver Surfer, Black Panther, The Negative Zone, ect. Marvel has long struggled to adapt the team to the modern era.

I haven’t seen the movie yet, but IMO the best F4 stories are ones where they aren’t so much a team of super heroes, but rather a team of scientist and explorers with super powers. They are better suited to telling sci-fi stories rather then traditional superhero stories.

No. You could argue the system that brought him to power is though.

A system that’s sole purpose is to empower a few kid diddling degenerates. A system that has been intentionally perpetuated by those who embody the worst aspects of human nature. Those who prostrate themselves at the alters of greed and power. Those whose actions are driving our whole species to destruction. The plots and gears of this system were well in motion before any of us were born, and the window to stop it before is destroys us all has passed. The system is biological life’s self-destructive nature made manifest.

In the end we are naught but mere animals. Like all other animals in a system where there are no natural predators and they are allowed propagate unrestrained, it will inevitably lead to the collapse of our ecosystem. We are just deer without hunters on a global scale. Cursed to be clever enough to realize we have brought about our own destruction, but not clever enough to stop it.

A Cosmic Doom has come for us all. The universe will go on without us.

This drop-off tracks with the brand. I say this as someone who likes the F4, they just don’t have a broad appeal with general audiences that other comic brands have. They’re a property that only comic nerds care about and always have been.

Edit: They also had to complete with Superman. The F4 have never been able to compete with Superman.

I adore BG3 but yeah. Viconia in particular felt like a big middle finger to fans of the original games. If they wanted to bring back an OG character to be irredeemably evil, Edwin is right there!

This. Expect to see feminist, environmentalist, Communism, and queer coded characters make a big comeback as movie villains. It’s the 80s all over again!

Trek is dead. It’s legacy will be what it inspires in us.

It’s also established that’s he’s an accelerationist. He’s intentionally baiting the Empire to crackdown more brutally on dissent in an effort to forment rebellion among the common people of the galaxy. He fears that if he does not do this, there will be a day when the Empires grip is too tight to escape.

“It will burn… Very brightly”

In the end, he was right. The Death Star vindicates his methods. Without Luthen laying the groundwork for the Rebel Alliance, the Galaxy would have been a boiling frog and the Death Star would have led to its brutal oppression for generations.

What do I need to hide about myself?

The Billionaires are a bunch of Degenerate Morons who diddle children, much as the ruling class has always been. They’re funneling the world’s wealth upwards thinking capital will insulate them from the coming climate crisis they’re exasperating. How I wish I could be there when they realize that it won’t.

Community organizers and vocal opposition are at the top of the list Palentir is making right now. Scrub your social media and start taking your data privacy seriously if you aren’t already. Degoogle and take your opinions off Meta and Reddit at the very least.

They’re going to test the waters by going after some brown protestors first, but the end game is all political opponents and uncontrolled opposition.

I think (and hope) that one key difference here is that the US is much more divided politically and culturally then Nazi Germany was. At least right now, there is no way the US declares a war of aggression against a former Ally and doesn’t fall into Civil War. It will take a hell of a lot of internal suppression for that to change, the act of which will likely ignite the Civil War itself.

My hope is that the next few years will be less “What if the Nazi’s controlled the most powerful nation in history?” and more “What if Francisco Franco controlled the most powerful nation is history?”

Europe and China likely have time to prepare, and they really fucking need to. If they’re smart they’re already covertly looking into ways to arm and fund internal opposition in America.

DS9 has always had edge. It’s among the great works of Anti-Fascist media. Given the course history has taken since it aired, the show has aged like fine wine.

Yep. And the most prominent fascist power that wasn’t overthrown externally (Francoist Spain) lasted 40 years until it’s demogogue died. The reason it wasn’t a bigger problem for the world at large was that it was a politically isolated minor power.

The world hasn’t yet seen something like an (openly) fascist modern USA.

No doubt something will go wrong. At all levels this administration is monstrously incompetent. They probably had Chatgpt plan the parade route.

The Fascism-to-Incontinence pipeline is real.

In general the entire series is mean-spirited. You can see the roots of Rowling’s hate in how she describes any of the series antagonists.

Sort of, but it’s more a comforting theory rather then a true belief. I came up with it when I was younger, doing a lot of psychedelics, and meditating often on the nature of existence and reality.

My theory is that God is everything. The earth, the stars, our fellow beings. All of reality makes up a complex web that I loosely refer to as a “consciousness” for lack of a better word. The nature of this “consciousness” is incomprehensible to us. It does not activly intervene in our daily lives, and operates on a scale beyond our comprehension. Mostly, it simply is. It is the oblivion from which our consciousness was once plucked, and it is where we will one day return.

In essence, each of us is a tiny fragment of reality experiencing itself. The meaning of life is to experience it. All of it. Joy, pleasure, and suffering. It is all a part of the whole of existence. When we die and return to the infinite our individuality is lost, but maybe God learns something about itself.

Even where there is viable public transport, there’s a stigma against using it. The city I live in has a decent and cheap Metro system. It’s reasonably clean, mostly runs on time, and you only have to deal with the occasional crazy. I took it for a summer after a car got totaled and it was fine.

Yet I work with a bunch of impoverished young people who spend $30-$40 on Ubers every day getting to work. I’ve suggested taking the bus to many of them, there’s even a stop right outside our workplace, and they are always dismissive and disgusted by the idea.

Man this takes me back.

Encarta and Paint were where I spent most of my computer time as a younger teenager. The trivia games on Encarta were dope, I also spent a lot of time walking around the 3d castles and ancient ruins. And a lot of time in the ummm… Art section. Learned a lot about myself from Venus of Urbino.

Used to waste time by painting giant graphic and bloody battle scenes between stick figures in paint. Did it pixel by pixel! Good times!

Oh, guess I don’t have to worry about catching up on all the dlc I’ve missed!