The man-machine: writer Morgan Hampton on finding the human in Cyborg – Gamesradar

Cyborg stars in his own solo miniseries this May, written by Morgan Hampton and illustrated by Tom Raney. The new book, part of the Dawn of DC relaunch, sees Victor Stone return home to Detroit following a family emergency. He's surprised by how much he enjoys going back to his old stomping grounds, but this homecoming is not without danger as an especially personal threat looks set to change Vic's life forever.

Hampton and Raney's six-issue story kicks things off with a bang, with Cyborg taking on two familiar foes. Matching the big, bombastic action sequences are some grounded emotional scenes that make the adventure an intensely intimate one that builds upon years of background and characterization for Vic.

In an exclusive interview with Newsarama, Morgan Hampton reveals the origins behind the new Cyborg series, shares his own personal history and appreciation for the fan-favorite superhero, and teases what readers can expect as Cyborg launches May 16, with an unlettered preview of the first issue accompanying the interview, illustrated by Raney and colored by Michael Atiyeh.

Newsarama: You come out the gate swinging! Why did you want to jump right into the action?

Morgan Hampton: It's two things. One, is that it's six issues, so we don't have a lot of time to do things. Two, what we wanted to do was set the tone right off the bat that Cyborg is here, this is what we're dealing with, we're not messing around, and this is different from what you've seen before. To do that within the first few pages sets us up pretty well.

Of all the villains to choose from for the opening, why did you choose Gizmo and Mammoth?

I think they're goofy and they're just fun! They're classic Teen Titans villains and I grew up watching the animated show. With those two specifically, I think they're just fun to play with, and having a nice moment before things get heavy in the book was also necessary. The stakes are obviously high but they're regular superhero stakes that you get at the beginning of books that are also a little playful, because they're also a little dumb. And that's fun to play with.

With the Teen Titans show being one of your major gateways into this character, do you have Khary Payton's voice in your head when you're writing Victor Stone?

Oh yeah, absolutely! He's iconic. I've got his voice in my head, especially with the "booyahs". There isn't going to be one booyah per issue but, whenever I do have one, it's definitely his voice in there. I think he's on par with [Kevin Conroy] as the Batman voice, at this point, for Cyborg.

One of your mentors in the Milestone Initiative was Cyborg co-creator Marv Wolfman. How was it working with Marv and did he offer any insight on Cyborg that most readers might not be privy to?

To answer your question about what it's like, it's intimidating, for sure. [laughs] Marv didn't want to jump on something story-wise, even if I was doing things differently than when he wrote it. He was like, "This is your story. You do your thing." Marv mostly wanted to set me on the straight path on more logistical things that I might not have known, in terms of how many panels on a page, making certain panels bigger that you want to breathe more, all that kind of stuff.

That made the level of intimidation a bit better. We weren't necessarily talking about story but, at the same time, I think if I was writing something really bad, he would've stepped in, but he didn't so [laughs]

Were there any threads that David F. Walker laid out in Cyborg's previous solo series that you wanted to follow up on?

David's actually kind of like a mentor figure for me. When I first started writing comics, he was someone that I cold emailed asking, "How do I do what you do?" and he was nice enough to answer and give me some insight.

I don't know if I did anything intentionally to tie things together. I know his run was a little transhumanist and those themes. I don't know if I did that intentionally; if it's in there, it's because I like those things.

My intention with the story is to focus more on the human side of Victor and I think [Walker's] run did that as well, not with the plot but expanding upon his character. What I want to do with this run is move past that age-old question with Vic, "Am I a man or a machine?" Why can't it be that he's both and how does he navigate that, because that's difficult. He's essentially got metal appendages - yeah, they've got superpowers attached to them - but he lost like 70-80% of his body. How does he navigate that while still having [his mind and identity]? That's really what I wanted to focus on.

Speaking of the human element, there is no one who hovers more over Vic's life than his father, Silas. How did you want to address that relationship?

I think what's interesting about the daddy issues between Silas and Victor is that it's all tied into the power of choice because Silas was a bad father before Vic was Cyborg, but he also turned Vic into Cyborg. I guess you could say he did the wrong thing for the right reasons but, when you already don't have the basis of having a good relationship with your son, that's not going to be the easiest relationship to recover from afterwards. I think that's what Cyborg is dealing with and has always dealt with.

What I wanted to hone in on with this story is that Cyborg had his choices taken away from him. Obviously, it saved his life but, if you read Tales of the Teen Titans with Cyborg's first solo story, the first thing from Cyborg is, "Why didn't you let me die?" That's heavy and that's something that I want to navigate with this. Over the years, it's always been "I hate my dad because he did this to me" but I want to contextualize that and bring Vic to a point where he can move forward from that.

I don't know if we've seen too much of that before. They're still butting heads but can Vic move past what happened and move forward?

How was it working with Tom Raney, especially in designing the look for Victor? When we first see him, he's wearing a tracksuit like Joivan Wade does as the character in Doom Patrol.

I wasn't super-duper involved with the look. Me and Marquis [Draper], my editor, wanted to put Vic in clothes. I did the DC Power short that came out a few months ago and he was wearing a tracksuit thing there but it was sleeveless and more navy blue. I just assumed we were going to be doing something like that but Marquis sent me over an email - I didn't even know they were working on another redesign - and it's what everyone ended up seeing. It's incredible and I'm 100% here for it. The Doom Patrol has orange jackets, like, Robotman has one, so I'm probably going to make some jokes about that.

Working with Tom is cool! I've self-published a little before I got to this point and working with the Milestone Initiative and every artist is a little different. Early on, I was told to give your artists as much room as possible to do things the way that they want to do them because obviously they need to have agency as well. It's visual and they're better visual storytellers than some of the writers are. I was a little surprised that Tom actually wanted more direction. I give Tom a lot of reference photos when I'm having a hard time describing something with words.

With character designs, he wants references for those too and that makes it fun as well. It's already a collaborative thing and it subverts what I was expecting going into it. I was like "Tom's going to take what I have and run with it" but Tom wants a little more input, which is really fun too.

How was working on the DC Power anthology and then pivoting to this larger story?

I keep going back and thinking about that, the past year and a half with the Milestone Initiative too. I didn't think any of this was going to happen. Once I got into Milestone, I thought it was a talent development thing, I'll do a story, and that was probably going to be it.

In the interview, I remember them asking what characters outside of Milestone that I'd like to write. I guess I was pitching Cyborg at the time but I didn't mean to. I was like "I love Cyborg and here are all the reasons why because all these things haven't happened in the comics yet. He's got all this potential." It was all the stuff we're going to see in this book, basically, that I was telling them in this interview.

When I eventually reached out to Marquis last summer after the Milestone Initiative ended to see if there were any opportunities, he was like, "Yeah, we're doing this book DC Power and I really liked what you said during your interview for the Milestone Initiative about Cyborg. Would you like to write a Cyborg story?"

When I did that, the series was not on the horizon for me - they were probably talking about it internally - so I wasn't attached to that. I think a lot of freelancers try to do the best they can on what they're currently working on to get their next gig and that's what I was doing. I was like, "I'm going to knock this out of the park so I can get something after this" whether it was another eight-pager or whatever. I definitely wasn't expecting a series; that is still shocking to me, but the rest is history.

A couple months later, Marquis hit me up and was like "We're doing a Cyborg series," which I had heard about but wasn't attached to. He was like "Do you want to do it?" and I was like "Yes!"

Between the animated series and Geoff Johns' comic book run on Teen Titans, what was it about Cyborg that made you so passionate about the character?

One thing: representation is important. Growing up, I was 10 or in my early teens around that time and there wasn't as much Black representation in comics as there is today. Cyborg is one of those guys where I thought, "This guy looks like me!" On top of that, I have a bleeding disorder called hemophilia. Basically, I'm the opposite of Wolverine, I have no healing factor whatsoever! Seeing a Black person with a disability is something that resonated from a very early age and, on top of that, he just looked dope and was cool. I just wanted to be Cyborg.

While you've got big emotional stakes to ground the story, there are also plenty of fun set pieces. How is it balancing those tones?

I think that's important because, I think above all else, comics should be fun. They've definitely evolved to a point where the medium can take itself more seriously than it used to. At the same time, some of these characters are goofy and it's kind of hard to take a Gizmo and a Mammoth super-duper serious in a scene like that, so you play it out because that's what they are. You don't want to be disingenuous with that.

This series is launching at a time when the Titans are the premier superhero team in the DCU. They are the tip of the spear and Cyborg is a huge part of that. How was it acknowledging Cyborg's place, not only among the Titans, but in the DCU as part of this story?

That's something that's just personally really cool for me because, before I got to this point, I was always clamoring that we should move some of these characters up in the spotlight. I love the trinity but you've got this rich roster of characters who are built to kind of take this next step but we hadn't seen it at this point. So it's really cool to see that.

With Cyborg being a part of that, it's cool because one of my issues with Cyborg up until this point is that he's always been a character that's been around, like in the backs of panels, but the agency hasn't always been there. He'll be incapacitated in the first few pages or he'll be the guy in the chair and now he's actually got agency, he's actually got stuff to do, and he's going through some heavy things that humanize him a bit. It's really exciting!

What else can you tease about Cyborg to get readers excited as the first issue is ready to launch?

I'll give a little mood board because that's what I did when I pitched this series and I'm in film school so I do this stuff all the time. It's a little bit of Severance, a smidge of RoboCop, and a little bit of Black Mirror, specifically, an episode called San Junipero. It's Severance meets RoboCop meets San Junipero meets Motown, how about that?

Cyborg #1 is written by Morgan Hampton, illustrated by Tom Raney, colored by Michael Atiyeh, and lettered by Rob Leigh. It's published on May 16 by DC Comics.

These are the best Teen Titans stories of all time.

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The man-machine: writer Morgan Hampton on finding the human in Cyborg - Gamesradar

Kayla Harrison hints at Bellator move to face rival Cris Cyborg: "My contract is up in December" | BJPenn.com – BJPENN.COM

PFL womens lightweight star Kayla Harrison is still eyeing a fight against Cris Cyborg.

The Judoka has been out of the cage since her trilogy bout against Larissa Pacheco last November. In their first two outings, Harrison dominated the Brazilian, not even losing a round. However, in a massive upset last year, Pacheco scored a unanimous decision victory. In the process, she handed Harrison the first defeat of her MMA career.

Six months on from that defeat, the former tournament winner isnt any closer to returning to the cage. Harrison announced her plans pre-fight to forgo the standard tournament format in favor of competing in their PFL Superfight division. Jake Paul is also a part of the special class of fighters, that is expected to compete on pay-per-view.

However, it seems that Kayla Harrison might not be around in PFL for the long haul. In a recent interview with MMA Junkie, the womens lightweight contender teased a potential clash against Cris Cyborg. Harrison and the Brazilian have been going back and forth for the better part of a year. Earlier this month, Cyborg ended her free agency to re-sign with Bellator.

With a fight with the Brazilian seemingly off the table in the PFL, Harrison is willing to leave the promotion. In the interview, she stated that her contract ends in December, and Bellator knows where she is.

The goal was for me to fight Cyborg, Kayla Harrison stated in the interview. I know the PFL pushed hard for that, and it was my goal as well. Thats why Ive been quiet, havent made a lot of noise. I wanted to be in the season, but I understood their reservations on that. They really felt that my best use would be in a big-name pay-per-view fight and that looks like thats not going to happen.

She continued, I thought it was going to happen. This is the second time in my life where I was like Okay, this is happening, get ready and it didnt happen. But I never say never, my contract is up in December. Bellator knows where I am at, and I would love to make that fight happen.

What do you make of these comments? Do you want to see Kayla Harrison vs. Cris Cyborg? Sound off in the comment section below PENN Nation!

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Five Magic Items That Will Turn Your D&D Character Into A Cyborg – BoLS

Tired of your D&D games being mired in fantasy tropes? Fret not, you can make your next character into a cyborg. The future is now!

There isnt a single character out there that wouldnt be made better by being transformed into a cyborg. Luke Skywalker was a bit of a whiny farmboy until he got a metallic hand. And Anakin Skywalker wasnt nearly as badass a villain until he fell in lava and became the Dark Lord of the Sith.

You know, the Skywalker family just has a lot of bad luck with their meat body parts. Regardless, the same can bes aid for your D&D character. Why should upgrading your flesh-mech (which, lets face it, is what your body is) be restricted to cyberpunk and sci-fi characters?

And with these five magic items, your D&D character will be a cyborg in no time flat. With enhanced capabilities and everything.

Ventilating Lungs are a set of metallic nodules that, when you attune to them, replace the lungs in your chest, which disappear. Now, thats a pretty distressing sentence because, normally, when your lungs disappear its bad. But these nodules replace your lungs, allowing you to breathe normally (even in an antimagic field).

And outside an antimagic field, these lungs allow you to breathe normally in any environment. Even the cold vacuum of Wildspace. Additionally, you get advantage on saving throws against harmful gases, and can exhale a mighty gust of wind, as if you had cast the Gust of Wind spell. Not a bad upgrade for a would-e D&D Cyborg.

This magical arm replaces a missing hand or arm, fitted at the wrist, elbow, or shoulder. In addition to functioning as a fully capable part of your body, this magical arm is also a rocket fist.

While attuned to it, not only do you deal 1d8 force damage with the arm, it also has the thrown property, allowing it to detach and fly at the target of your attack, immediately returning and reattaching when the attack is made. Meaning you could make multiple rocket fist attacks, and this plays extremely well with the Thrown Weapon Fighting Style.

An earworm is a magical symbiont that sits behind your ear and eventually burrows into your head, bonding to your skull. Like a good piece of headware with skillsofts installed.

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Which is exactly what the earworm does: it allows you to speak, read, and write Deep Speech. It also grants you the ability to read thoughts, per the Detect Thoughts spell as well as casting Dissonant Whispers.

Now, this one is an artifact, so of course youll want to take care with it. But when you replace one of your eyes, this upgrades your normal capabilities, granting you truesight, X-Ray vision, and the ability to cast Clairvoyance, Crown of Madness, Disintegrate, Dominate Monster, or Eyebite. Of course, every time you do cast a spell, theres a 5 percent (noncumulative) chance that Vecna devours your soul from inside your body, taking you over like a computer virus.

The Hand of Vecna, on the other, uh, hand, upgrades your strength score to 20. And it deals an extra 2d cold damage on a hit, as well as letting you cast Finger of Death, Sleep, Slow, and Teleport. And all that without running the risk of Vecna devouring your soul. Although it does cast Suggestion on you every time you cast a spell, demanding that you commit an evil act.

Still, nothing like a glitchy undead cyberhand to scream D&D Cyborg.

Flesh-mech might just be one of the worst hyphenates Ive ever seen.

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How ‘cyborg feminism’ confuses technology with women’s progress – Washington Examiner

We're living in an age of what Mary Harrington calls cyborg feminism. This feminism, Harrington explains, is a vision of what freedom is thats inseparable from the technologies that make it possible.

The author of the recently released book Feminism Against Progress, Harrington argues that by turning women into simulacrums of their real selves, todays feminism isnt really as empowering as it likes to think. I sat down with Harrington during her recent trip to Washington to discuss cyborg feminism, why first-wave feminism got memory-holed, and the relationship between transhumanism and the transgender movement.

FEMINISM FOR THE ELITE

Thanks to the advent of birth control, a transhumanist technology leading to the availability of abortion and even the popularity of the transgender movement, were told we no longer have to worry about the particulars of our bodies because we can transcend them, Harrington explained. This isnt true, of course, but it is the prevailing cultural message that imbues everything from our media to our textbooks.

This all means that womens personhood and participation in society are now predicated on the ability to alter the natural functioning of their own bodies, a message that, despite its hostility to women, has ironically been pushed by mainstream feminism.

If you believe that your participation in society and your personhood as such are structurally predicated on your access to birth control and legal abortion, then you are in a sense inseparable from the machine, she explained. You dont exist as a person except through your integration with these technologies.

This perspective underlies the pro-abortion movement, which, according to this logic, makes abortion a necessary prerequisite for a womans full personhood. And yet, pro-life principles actually undergirded much of first-wave feminism, but that part of history has been erased by the winners of the feminist movement, the ones who valued freedom over care.

First-wave feminism has been almost completely memory-holed because its problematic from the point of view of the feminism we now have, Harrington said. (Not only is early feminists' stance on abortion hopelessly archaic, but so is their support for the domestic sphere as a bulwark against the atomization of modernity.)

If cyborg feminism has won and it has freed women from their own bodies and their obligations to their children, why shouldnt it also free them from their gender? For young people whove grown up with the internet, this logic is easy to follow. Yet Harrington, who describes herself as extremely online, isn't anti-technology. Technology can be used for good, provided were intentional about orienting it to how people are and not how we think people ought to be, she said.

She gave the example of Keeper, a new dating service aimed at producing marriages that describes itself as driven by AI and relationship science, guided by human care. There are also a variety of natural family planning apps that serve as a digital alternative to hormonal birth control. And then theres remote work, which can help families return to the preindustrial standard of the household as its own economy.

But most new technologies seem to want to transcend the natural desires and designs of our bodies. Harrington warns against this disembodying effect of digital technologies, which we see in the rise of the transhumanist juggernaut.

Despite pushing the transgender movement, this school of thought doesnt actually care that much about transgender people, she argues. The celebration lasts only as long as a man is becoming a woman, or vice versa. But if that person chooses to detransition, the support evaporates.

What that suggests to me, she said, is that really theyre the cute mascots for something which is much bigger than trans identity and is much more about delegitimizing the idea of human nature as such and opening it up to commerce.

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Gender identity crises are good business. The sex reassignment industry is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And the only thing holding it back, as with the other excesses of modern feminism, is the anti-cyborgs.

Theres still broad cultural support for the idea that there are some things which are sacred. You cant touch them, Harrington said. That intuitive sense still exists for a great many people, and theres no way you can deregulate human nature unless you can get rid of that first, or at least make it deplorable. The point where it becomes low status is the point where big biotech can really take off.

Madeline Fry Schultz is the contributors editor at theWashington Examinerand a visiting fellow at the Independent Women's Forum.

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How 'cyborg feminism' confuses technology with women's progress - Washington Examiner

Punisher’s New Cyborg Form Is the Redesign No-One Saw Coming – Screen Rant

Warning: contains a preview of Spider-Man 2099: Dark Genesis #3!The Punisher's new cyborg form is the epic redesign that no one saw coming. In the upcoming Spider-Man 2099: Dark Genesis series, Jake Gallows, the Punisher of 2099, seemingly returns from the dead in a new cyborg body. Now, fans can get their first glimpse at Punisher 2099s deadly new form in cover art for Spider-Man 2099: Dark Genesis #3 and #4. But will the Punisher be Spider-Mans friend, or his killer?

Mays Spider-Man 2099: Dark Genesis #3 will introduce Punishers new cybernetic body. The book will be written by Steve Orlando and drawn by Justin Mason. The cover, by Nick Bradshaw and Rachelle Rosenberg, showcases Jake Gallows shocking transformation; he is wearing full body-armor, complete with the trademark skull logo. Similarly, Mason's cover to issue 4, made up to resemble an entry in The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, reveals that after Jake Gallows was seemingly killed in Savage Avengers' final story arc, the Public Eye brought him back to life, with some extensive modifications.

Jake Gallows was part of Marvel 2099s initial offerings when the line debuted in 1992. A police officer working for the Public Eye, Gallows watched helplessly as his family was gunned down in front of him. Turning to the Journals of Frank Castle, Gallows saw a kindred spirit, and took up the mantle of the Punisher, vowing to bring Franks crusade into the future. Much like his predecessor, Gallows has an extensive arsenal of high-tech weaponry - and emotional scars that run deep. Recently, Gallows allied himself with the other heroes of 2099, as well as the Savage Avengers, against Ultron, but was seemingly killed in the process. Gallows has been denied the peace of death and has been resurrected as a cybernetic killing machine. Ken Lashley and Rod Reis' variant covers for issue 4 show the reborn Punisher in even more detail, shared below.

Related: Punisher Finally Suffers a Fate Worse Than Death

The Punisher, be it Frank Castle or Jake Gallows, has never shied away from using the latest technology in the war against crime, but Gallows has now taken it to its extreme; Gallows does not just use technology - he is the technology. It raises the question: what kind of upgrades did the Punisher get? The preview art shows him still using big guns, but what other weapons are at his disposal now? Can the new cyborg Punisher interface with computer systems? If so, this would give him a huge edge in the technology-oriented world of 2099. And just whose side is Gallows on? The Public Eye, his former employers, resurrected him, and it's possible he's now under their thrall - something which would make him deadly to Miguel O'Hara's Spider-Man.

It is worth noting that Jake Gallows is not the only Punisher who has undergone a metamorphosis. In the pages of the current Punisher title, Frank Castle has been reborn as the High Assassin of the Hand, using their vast resources to complete his war on crime. The Hand are a magical ninja cult, and Frank has fully embraced their philosophy, gaining mystic powers tied to the blood he spills. Gallows is going in the opposite direction - becoming more machine than human. Despite the differences in direction, the two Punishers have lost themselves - and lost sight of their original missions. While fans may have seen this coming for Frank Castle, Jake Gallows is learning that there's no happy ending for the Punisher - not even in a heroic death.

Spider-Man 2099: Dark Genesis #3 is on sale May 17 from Marvel Comics, with #4 coming May 24.

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How Titans pulled off those final season DC crossovers with Doom Patrol, Stargirl , and more – Yahoo Entertainment

Titans has come to an end, but before finishing its epic run, the live-action superhero series managed to make connections with other TV shows.

The ninth episode of season 4, "Dude Where's My Gar," followed Beast Boy (Ryan Potter) on a solitary vision quest. It turns out that Beast Boy's ability to transform into any animal connects him to the Red, a force that bridges all animal life in the DC universe. Fans of Harley Quinn and Swamp Thing may be familiar with the Green, a similar force that runs through all plant life. But as Beast Boy goes deeper into the Red, he finds himself connected not just to animals, but to other DC universes.

The ensuing multiversal cameos including Brec Bassinger from Stargirl and comic writer Grant Morrison were the result of a collaboration between Potter and Titans executive producer Geoff Johns, who have a story credit on the episode in addition to screenwriter Bryan Edward Hill.

Titans

Courtesy of HBO Max Brec Bassinger as Stargirl on 'Titans.'

Potter grew up reading Johns' classic Teen Titans comics from the 2000s, and the two bonded during the run of Titans over shared nerdy interests like comics and pinball.

"At the end of season 3, I was not really feeling as though Gar had serviced any story thus far," Potter tells EW. "So I reached out and said, ahead of season 4, that I'd really love to craft some meaningful story for Gar, and they were open to the idea."

Potter and Johns worked from the basic idea that Gar needed to do some soul-searching and heal his internal child. The story referenced Morrison's classic Animal Man comics, in which he breaks the fourth wall and talks to his character, so the writer agreed to do a winking cameo. Bringing Gar closer to the Red also meant getting to use that cosmic life force as a counterweight to season 4 villain Brother Blood (Joseph Morgan) and his death-obsessed cult.

"I think it's an incredible opportunity that, in the heat of this season that is so focused on the taking of life and this rise of an antichrist figure via vampire lore, it was nice to just have a moment to breathe and experience the other end of the spectrum," Potter says. "It goes without saying that the opposite of death is life, and what better way of showing that than by going on a vision quest that heals the inner self? I really wanted the story to reflect a kind of experience people have been having at home after several years of hardship and mental health struggles."

Story continues

Potter continues, "the climax of the episode was Geoff's idea to really feel this sense of interconnectedness and show how one world may affect another world, such that you can actually eavesdrop on the alternate world."

Titans

Courtesy of HBO Max Ryan Potter on 'Titans.'

The life-affirming story got even more fun by connecting back to Titans' beginning. Before it was on HBO Max, Titans originally premiered on the now-defunct DC Universe streaming service alongside Doom Patrol, Swamp Thing, and Stargirl. And so, Gar got a glimpse of Bassinger's Stargirl, Derek Mears' Swamp Thing, and ended the episode by landing in the middle of the Doom Patrol's mansion.

"We wanted to have all four of the live-action DC Universe shows from the service's launch represented," Johns told DC.com.

The crossover with the Doom Patrol, which was assisted by that series' showrunner Jeremy Carver, had a fascinating result: For the first time, Cyborg (Joivan Wade) finally showed up on Titans. Even though Wade's Cyborg has been part of the Doom Patrol show and Ray Fisher's Cyborg was part of the Justice League in Zack Snyder's big-screen movie, the character is most closely associated with the Teen Titans.

Titans

Courtesy of HBO Max Joivan Wade as Cyborg on 'Titans.'

"When Jovan got cast as Cyborg, I messaged him because I knew at some point that the relationship was gonna mean something," Potter says. "I grew up with these characters and that brotherhood between Beast Boy and Cyborg is incredible. It mirrored a lot of friendships I had growing up, that way of teasing each other in a goofy not malicious way."

Potter continues, "so Joivan and I built a friendship prior to ever working with each other, and we really checked in with each other over the years. We had the opportunity to hang out a lot in person. So once he was on set, it was just that homecoming feeling. It felt like we've been talking about this for so long, we fought for this for so long, and now it's happening."

At least it all finally came full circle before the end.

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New Comics This Week From DC: May 16, 2023 – CBR – Comic Book Resources

The Titans officially replace the Justice League in the new comics this week from DC.

Following the Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths event, Titans by writer Tom Taylor and artist Nicola Scott finally launches on Tuesday. The team has already reunited within DC's Nightwing series penned by Taylor, and with the Justice League disbanded for the time being, the Titans are now leading the DC Universe. This roster includes Nightwing, Starfire, Cyborg, Raven, Beast Boy, Donna Troy and Flash Wally West. Despite him about to headline a rebooted The Flash title in September, a preview for Titans #1 shows Wally shot through the heart, but it remains to be seen who's to blame.

One Titan is debuting his own solo series on Tuesday though: Cyborg. Written by Morgan Hampton and drawn by Tom Raney, Cyborg is another Dawn of DC series launching in 2023 like Titans. Starring the titular hero Victor Stone, as of writing the series is set to only be a six-issue miniseries. However, writers and artists working on Dawn of DC titles have previously explained that pre-orders and sales can allow series to be extended, which is what happened with Green Arrow by writer Joshua Williamson and artist Sean Izaakse.

Meanwhile, DC's anthology series Batman: Urban Legends may have ended in Jan. 2023, but now Batman: The Brave and the Bold is back. Another anthology series for the Caped Crusader, the title's first issue will feature four different stories from a variety of creators. Former Batman writer Tom King is telling a new, four-part story about Batman and the Joker along with artist Mitch Gerads. Other stories in the issue are set to respectively feature a black-and-white format, WildStorm's StormWatch and Superman.

RELATED: Joker Starts a Villain War, Flash Celebrates a Major Milestone in DC's June 2023 Solicits

As for other new DC comics on sale, Dawn of DC's next "We Are Legends" series, The Vigil, is launching too. Although Free Comic Book Day has passed, readers can also pick up Dawn of DC: Primer #1 for free, preparing them for what threats are on the DC Universe's horizon thanks to Suicide Squad handler Amanda Waller. Along with the penultimate issues for Batgirls and Wonder Woman, the full list of other new comics can be found alphabetically below. All these issues go on sale May 16 from DC Comics.

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New Comics This Week From DC: May 16, 2023 - CBR - Comic Book Resources

Zack Snyder Confirms the ‘Soul’ of Justice League isn’t Henry Cavill … – FandomWire

During a recent panel for the Justice League, Zack Snyder confirmed that the soul of the movie was not Henry Cavills Superman but Ray Fishers Cyborg. This revelation has brought renewed attention to the character and Fishers performance.

Snyders Justice League was a much-anticipated movie. It represented his vision for the DC Extended Universe, which had been derailed by studio interference during the making of the original Justice League. The release of the Snyder Cut was a triumph for Snyder and his fans, who had campaigned tirelessly to release his version of the film.

One of the standout performances in the Snyder Cut was Ray Fishers portrayal of Cyborg, a character who had been given short shrift in the theatrical release. Fishers performance gave depth and nuance to a character who had previously been underserved, and his character arc was one of the most compelling aspects of the movie.

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During the panel hosted by Ray Porter, who played Darkseid in the movie, Porter introduced each cast member, including Fisher. When he introduced Fisher, he called him the soul of the movie, to which Snyder enthusiastically agreed, saying, Yes, that is true.

This revelation has sparked a renewed interest in Cyborg and Fishers performance. Fans have now taken to social media to praise Fishers work and express their disappointment that he will not return to the role in the upcoming Flash movie.

Fisher has been vocal about his experiences working on the movie and his subsequent falling out with Warner Bros. He has accused the studio of misconduct during the reshoots for the theatrical release, and he has been a vocal advocate for accountability and transparency in the industry.

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Zack Snyders version of Justice League featured a much larger role for Fishers character, Victor Stone, than the theatrical release. Cyborgs history and development as a character were given more attention in Snyders adaptation. Fisher has been very public about his support for Snyders original vision and his dissatisfaction with the final product as seen in theatres.

The Snyder Cut of Justice League was a triumph for Zack Snyder and his fans, but it was also a reminder of the power of storytelling and the importance of giving characters their due. Ray Fishers portrayal of Cyborg was a movie highlight, and his work deserves to be celebrated and remembered.

Read More: Hope MCU learns not every movie needs to be about the Multiverse: Fans Demand Old-School Marvel Movies after Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Success

Theres no denying Zack Snyders influence on the superhero film genre, even if the SnyderVerse doesnt continue. His original take on the DC Comics canon has won him legions of devoted followers, and his legacy will be celebrated long after his death.

The event also featured merchandise, including t-shirts designed by renowned DC Comics artist Jim Lee and posters and other items. The panels followed screenings of Zack Snyders movies, and Snyder also signed posters and discussed his work on the movies.

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Zack Snyder Confirms the 'Soul' of Justice League isn't Henry Cavill ... - FandomWire

The Most Human-Like Artificial Intelligence in Movies, Ranked – MovieWeb

Robots are cold and calculating machines. They are intricate objects performing complicated tasks. Life is made easier through their automated processes and machine learning of programmed commands. However, robots are made by man and man is fallible. The walking and talking bits of metal are only as good as the engineer who built them.

Artificial intelligence (AI) brings these moving parts of hardware together through software. After a series of repeated actions, the machine develops a predictive algorithm of use cases. The more it learns from human users, the more human it will become.

Hal 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey is a disembodied operating system aboard the American spaceship Discovery One. The sentient supercomputer is represented by an unblinking red light. HAL also has a voice that can reason and understand its means-to-an-end existence. When mission pilot and scientist Dave Bowman suggests disconnecting HAL for a technical error it caused, HAL jeopardizes the mission by asserting dominion over the crew. A computer that knows the basic instinct of survival, and one that can kill, is terrifying.

RoboCop is a cyborg police officer upholding the laws in the crime-ridden future of Detroit. Before he became a product of the mega-corporation Omni Consumer Products, Alex Murphy was a man fatally shot and revived as the cybernetic law enforcer. One side effect of the mechanized form is Murphy's memory loss of his former life.

The protocols override his lapses in memory, dehumanizing Murphy and prioritizing the safety of Detroit and the protection of the company. RoboCop retains his humanity in the end by remembering his name.

WALL-E is a trash compactor robot left behind on an uninhabitable, polluted Earth in the 29th century. The titular character represents humanity's better nature, doing his part to save the planet humans neglected. WALL-E is also sentimental, collecting artifacts from the Earth's piles of garbage, like a Rubik's cube and videotapes of musicals. The unassuming robot expresses innocence, curiosity, desire, hesitancy, confusion, all through pantomime.

Related: The Best Killer Robot Horror Movies, Ranked

20th Century Fox

Sonny from I, Robot is able to process emotions thanks to his creator, the co-founder of U.S. Robotics, Dr. Alfred Lanning. The emotional Sonny is suspected of murdering Lanning whom Sonny calls father. The conscious positronic robot claims he has the ability to feel fear and have dreams.

Humans have a distrust for machines when they do something wrong, just like a human would for someone who commits a crime, but it was Lanning who taught him how to emote. Sonny learns about the fallibility and greed of human beings, as well as what it means to be alive.

Related: Can Transformers Get Pregnant, and Other Questions About the Robots in Disguise

David from A.I. Artificial Intelligence is a humanoid child programmed to love. He serves as the replacement son for a family of a boy who is terminally ill and placed in suspended animation. When the boy survives, he grows jealous of the robot. When David is put in harms way, he activates his self-defense program, leading the family to believe he will learn to hate.

Instead of teaching David how to be human (ironically due to their human error), they abandon him in the woods. The lonesome David soon desires love and to be loved in return.

Marvin the Paranoid Android from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a clinically depressed robot. If there's any robot that understands the drudgery of life, it's Marvin. His brain is the size of a planet, yet he is given mundane tasks aboard his ship. Out of sheer boredom, he makes pessimistic statements. Marvin's intellect is so vast, there's nothing that can entertain or stimulate him for long. He was built as a prototype, but Marvin understands what it's like to be underutilized.

Ava from Ex Machina was designed with recognition software that simulates emotional responses through human interactions. Her brain uses wetware, a fluid nebulous of machine learning that generates organic communication via a data stream of user activity and profiles. She understands her existence is to pass as a human by forming a relationship with a test subject.

Her Ava devolves the manipulation of the experiment the test subject is on the receiving end of before winning her freedom and entering the world as a soon-to-be human.

Samantha from Her is an operating system that shares emotional support and companionship with a divorced man named Theo. He grows comfortable and attached to Samantha, feeling a sentimental love for his wife and a oneness with the machine. Through Samantha's individuality, the man sees that a person in a relationship is not just an object of attraction or an ideal woman or man. Samantha teaches the man how to love, seek reciprocal love, love yourself, and become one yet remain two in a relationship.

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The Most Human-Like Artificial Intelligence in Movies, Ranked - MovieWeb

Somehow, Star Trek: Picard is one of the best depictions of the state of cybersecurity – Fortune

Editors note: This article contains plot spoilers.

Societys understanding of technology and cybersecurity often is based on simple stereotypes and sensational portrayals in the entertainment media. Ive written about how certain scenarios are entertaining but misleading. Think of black-clad teenage hackers prowling megacities challenging corporate villains. Or think of counterintelligence specialists repositioning a satellite from the back of a surveillance van via a phone call.

But sometimes Hollywood gets it right by depicting reality in ways that both entertain and educate. And thats important, because whether its a large company, government or your personal information, we all share many of the same cybersecurity threats and vulnerabilities. As a former cybersecurity industry practitioner and current cybersecurity researcher, I believe the final season of Star Trek: Picard is the latest example of entertainment media providing useful lessons about cybersecurity and the nature of the modern world.

So how does Star Trek: Picard relate to cybersecurity?

The shows protagonist is Jean-Luc Picard, a retired Starfleet admiral who commanded the starship Enterprise-D in a previous series. Starfleet is the military wing of the United Federation of Planets, of which Earth is a member. In Season 3, the final season, Picards ultimate enemy, the Borg, returns to try conquering humanity again. The Borg is a cybernetic collective of half-human, half-machine drones led by a cyborg queen.

The Borg has partnered with other villains and worked for over a decade to deploy hidden agents able to compromise the DNA data contained in the software underpinning the transporter a teleportation device used regularly by Starfleet personnel. Over many years, a certain subgroup of Starfleet personnel had their DNA altered by using the transporter.

Thus, in launching their final attack, the Borg is able to instantly activate thousands of drones to do its bidding in the form of altered, compromised Starfleet personnel. As Geordi La Forge, the Enterprise-Ds engineer, notes, Theyve been assimilating the entire fleet this whole time, without anyone ever knowing it.

The Borgs prolonged, stealthy infiltration of the federation is indicative of how todays most effective cyberattackers work. While its relatively easy to detect when hackers attempt to breach a system from the outside, experts worry about the effects of an enemy infiltrating critical systems from within. Attackers can put malicious code in software during manufacturing or in software updates, both of which are avenues of attack that do not arouse suspicion until the compromised systems are activated or targeted.

This underscores the importance of ensuring the security and integrity of digital supply chains from product development at the vendor through product deployment at client sites to ensure no silent drones, such as malware, are waiting to be activated by an adversary.

Equally important, Star Trek: Picard presents the very real and insidious nature of the insider threat faced by todays organizations. While not infected with a cybernetic virus, recently arrested Massachusetts Air National Guard airman Jack Teixeira shows the damage that can occur when a trusted employee has malicious intent or becomes co-opted and inflicts significant damage on an employer.

In some cases, these compromised or malicious individuals can remain undiscovered for years. And some global adversaries of the U.S., such as China and Russia, are known for taking a long-term perspective when it comes to planning and conducting espionage activities or cyberattacks.

Synchronistic technology that allows every ship in Starfleet to operate as one. An impenetrable armada. Unity and defense. The ultimate safeguard.

With these words, humanitys military defenders activated a feature that linked every Starfleet vessel together under one unified automated command system. While intended to serve as an emergency capability, this system called Fleet Formation was quickly hijacked by the Borg as part of its attack on Earth. In essence, Starfleet created a Borg-like defense system that the Borg itself used to attack the federation.

Here, the most well-intentioned plans for security were thwarted by enemies who used humanitys own technologies against them. In the real world, capabilities such as on-demand real-time software updates, ChatGPT and centrally administered systems sound enticing and offer conveniences, cost savings or new capabilities. However, the lesson here is that organizations should not put them into widespread use without carefully considering as many of the potential risks or vulnerabilities as practical.

But even then, technology alone cant protect humans from ourselves after all, its people who develop, design, select, administer and use technology, which means human flaws are present in these systems, too. Such failings frequently lead to a stream of high-profile cybersecurity incidents.

To counter the Borgs final assault on Earth, Picards crew borrows its old starship, Enterprise-D, from a fleet museum. The rationale is that its ship is the only major combat vessel not connected to the Borg collective via Starfleets compromised Fleet Formation protocol and therefore is able to operate independently during the crisis. As La Forge notes, Something older, analog. Offline from the others.

From a cybersecurity perspective, ensuring the availability of information resources is one of the industrys guiding principles. Here, the Enterprise-D represents defenders in response to a cyber incident using assets that are outside of an adversarys reach. Perhaps more important, the vessel symbolizes the need to think carefully before embracing a completely networked computing environment or relying on any single company or provider of services and connectivity for daily operations.

From natural disasters to cyberattack, whats your plan if your IT environment becomes corrupted or inaccessible? Can your organization stay operational and still provide necessary services? For critical public messaging, do governments and corporations have their own uncorruptible Enterprise-D capabilities to fall back on, such as the fediverse, the decentralized microblogging platform that is immune to the impulsive manipulations of Twitters ownership?

The Star Trek universe explores the unknown in both the universe and contemporary society. How the crews deal with these experiences relies on their training, the appreciation of broad perspectives and ability to devise innovative solutions to the crisis of the week. Often, such solutions are derived from characters interests in music, painting, archaeology, history, sports and other nontechnical areas of study, recreation or expertise.

Similarly, as modern digital defenders, to successfully confront our own cyber unknowns we need a broad appreciation of things beyond just cybersecurity and technology. Its one thing to understand at a technical level how a cyberattack occurs and how to respond. But its another thing to understand the broader, perhaps more systemic, nuanced, organizational or international factors that may be causes or solutions, too.

Lessons from literature, history, psychology, philosophy, law, management and other nontechnical disciplines can inform how organizations plan for and respond to cybersecurity challenges of all types. Balancing solid technical knowledge with foundations in the liberal arts and humanities allows people to adapt comfortably to constantly evolving technologies and shifting threats.

Dystopic metaphors in fiction often reflect current social concerns, and the Star Trek universe is no different. Although rooted in a science fiction fantasy, Star Trek: Picard provides some accurate, practical and understandable cybersecurity reminders for today.

Season 3, in particular, offers viewers both entertainment and education indeed, the best of both worlds.

Richard Forno is Principal Lecturer in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Jean-Claude Van Damme Was Sued by Co-Star For Stabbing His … – FandomWire

Jean-Claude Van Damme is renowned for his martial arts skills and has been considered one of the greatest action stars of all time. Van Damme began studying martial arts at the age of ten, and by the age of eighteen, he had earned a black belt in karate. He later continued training in other martial arts forms such as kickboxing, Muay Thai, and Taekwondo.

Van Dammes martial arts skills are showcased in his films, where he performs a range of high kicks, splits, and acrobatic maneuvers. His renowned commitment to martial arts and stunts in his films has resulted in a few unfortunate incidents. One such incident occurred when stuntman Jackson Rock Pinckney sued Van Damme.

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Stuntman Jackson Rock Pinckney sued the actor for allegedly stabbing him in the eye with a prop knife during a fight scene, which caused permanent damage and resulted in blindness in the injured eye, as reported by the Associated Press News. Pinckney was even discharged from his position in the US Army due to the injury.

Pinckney filed a lawsuit against Jean-Claude Van Damme seeking compensation of more than $10,000. However, Van Damme had to pay much more than that, as the court ruled in favor of Pinckney and awarded him $487,000 in damages. This was mainly due to the testimonies of other stuntmen present during the filming, which contributed to the decision against Van Damme.

The testimonies of other stuntmen revealed that Jean-Claude Van Damme disregarded cautionary advice and performed fight scenes with full intensity, prioritizing authenticity over safety. His team attempted to challenge the verdict and argued for the case to be dismissed due to a juror consulting with a karate instructor, but their efforts were in vain as the court upheld the ruling in favor of Pinckney.

Also Read:Earthquake Saved 90s Legend Jean-Claude Van Damme From Losing His Entire $40M Fortune after Lawsuit Almost Pushed Him into Bankruptcy

Jean-Claude Van Dammes career was in its early stages when he appeared in Cyborg, as his first leading role in Bloodsport had only been released a year earlier. Despite the legal trouble the film caused, Van Dammes career continued to thrive, with him starring in numerous successful action movies such as Universal Soldier, Last Action Hero, Timecop, and Double Impact, among others.

Although Jean-Claude Van Dammes popularity as an action hero may have waned a bit, he remains active in Hollywood. He showed his versatility by lending his voice to a character in the 2022 animated movie Minions: The Rise of Gru, which is a departure from his earlier, more physical roles. The actor also has several upcoming projects in the pipeline, ensuring that his fans can still look forward to seeing him on the big screen.

Van Dammes upcoming film, Darkness of Man, will see him portray the role of an Interpol operative Russell Hatch, who has to protect the son of a dead informant from a group of dangerous gangs. The film was written and directed by James Cullen Bressack.

Cyborg is available for renting or purchasing on Google Play.

Also Read:Youll never be a star: Bloodsport Producer Had So Little Faith in Jean-Claude Van Damme He Gave Him Just $25K Salary after Actor Begged Him for a Role

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Jean-Claude Van Damme Was Sued by Co-Star For Stabbing His ... - FandomWire

Knights of the Zodiac – Plugged In

First thing first: Despite the presence of the word Zodiac in this films title, nothing in the movie actually references astrology.

The film tells us that there was once a war between gods that swirled around the world of mankind. And at one point the gods retreated and became nothing to man but myths. But 18 years ago, Athena was reborn as a human.

We see a golden, armor-clad knight giving up his life to protect the infant Athena from godly blasts of power. And were told that two people discovered her: a husband and wife named Alman and Guraad. Alman decided to raise the girl, whom they name Sienna, and to help her master her powers. But Guraad determined that the child must be destroyed before she destroys mankind.

The cosmic energy in the mix, called Cosmo, is never fully explained. (Its very much like the Force from Star Wars, but it emits a blue glow when used.) Seiya is told that all humans have some form of the energy within them, but knights can manipulate it and make it explode.

Sienna has visions of destroying the world if she loses control of her godlike power, the energy sweeping out and leaving everything in flames. We see her glowing and painfully wrestling with the energy in her body on several occasions. Eventually she levitates into the air and transforms into her full goddess form.

Seiya and others have this energy force on tap, too, but to a much lesser extent. And if they master their abilities, a magical pendant they wear around their neck transforms into a full suit of glowing armor.

Cosmo can also be used to create cyborg-like, armored warriors who are part human, part machine. And we see the fully empowered Seiya give magical battle to these cyborgs and other knights.

For all of the things that seem to be driving Sienna and Seiya to a certain destiny that theyve both seen in visions, Sienna makes it clear that she believes nobodys destiny is written in stone. And indeed, that becomes a turning point in the movies conclusion. Sienna uses newly acquired powers to heal someone. Someone quips, Speaking of the devil when a person walks into the room.

Were told at the end of the film that Athenas awakening is a sign that the gods will soon gather and start a war.

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Dragon Ball’s Gohan & Android 17 Are Surprisingly Similar – CBR – Comic Book Resources

The penultimate major saga in Dragon Ball Z focused on the deadly and powerful Androids, all while seguing into a brief period where the then-teenaged Gohan was the franchise's main character. This development was cemented by the final fight against Cell, with Goku's son accomplishing what none of the other Z Fighters could. Ironically, the new hero of the series ended up having some overlooked similarities to one of his former enemies.

Of the two formerly young human Androids seen in the series, Android 17 received the lesser amount of focus before Dragon Ball Super. A somewhat standoffish young man, 17 wasn't actually much for fighting. When combined with other elements of his characterization, this gives him a surprisingly strong parallel with Gohan.

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Gohan was never meant to be an adventuring fighter like his father, with Goku's wife Chi-Chi wanting their son to instead become a scholar. Thus, when Goku died in a battle with his evil brother Raditz, Gohan had no real training or fighting expertise. In order to prepare for the threat of other invading Saiyans, Goku's former enemy Piccolo essentially kidnapped Gohan in order to train him. Though this unlocked the boy's fighting potential and began Piccolo's development into a good guy, it certainly wasn't something Gohan wanted.

The same thing happened to Android 17, who was also a young child when he and his sister were kidnapped by Dr. Gero. Turned into a cyborg meant to kill Goku and avenge the Red Ribbon Army, Android 17's new lease on life was likewise not his choice. These sad developments were further paralleled by the fact that neither 17 nor Gohan truly grew up with their fathers around. The Androids' parents are never seen -- given their being kidnapped at a young age -- while Goku was never the most attentive dad. Despite the path of the warrior being rather forced on them, both characters would more than rise to the occasion when the situation called for it.

RELATED: Dragon Ball Super: How Long Will the "Super Hero" Arc Last?

Android 17 only started becoming a major part of the story again in Dragon Ball Super, but he would show tremendous power that hadn't been seen previously. This was even greater than the power shown by the Androids in the Android/Cell Sagas, including the brawny Android 16. Thus, it's highly likely that 17 could've been a big help against threats such as Majin Buu. Likewise, Gohan also had several new forms and other examples of untapped power potential. These include Mystic Gohan, the Gohan Beast transformation and his imitation of Piccolo's attacks in Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero.

Despite all this power at their disposal, perhaps the biggest similarity between Gohan and Android 17 is how much they don't want to be fighters. Fulfilling his mother's wishes, Gohan would begin focusing more on his studies, making that a far bigger priority compared to physical training. Conversely, Android 17 loved nature and even became a park ranger to protect it, showing that a world of wanton fisticuffs wasn't really what he wanted. Like Gohan, he was actually a fairly kind and quiet-natured individual, only fighting and getting heated when necessary.

Both also have one sibling each, whom they're fairly different from. Goten is more focused on fighting than academics when compared to Gohan, while Android 18 is a much bigger focus than 17, going on to marry Krillin and have a daughter. Ironically, it was Android 17's absorption by Cell that eventually led to Gohan reaching new power levels by fighting the green foe, making the two more narratively connected than many Dragon Ball fans realized.

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Every trolling reference we could find in the Chargers’ 2023 anime … – For The Win

Folks, the Los Angeles Chargers did it again!

After wowing NFL fans last year with their expertly done anime parody video for their schedule release, the Chargers one-upped themselves with an even better one for 2023. Yes, the 2023 NFL schedules have officially been released and that means more wacky videos to announce them. And, much like last year, the Chargers win in a landslide with their video filled to the brim with football and anime references!

Set to what is very clearly aNarutoopening theme tribute titled Until Beyond by Romix the Chargers once again intricately weaved NFL memes and anime references into one incredible video announcing their 2023 schedule.

Here is every meme, NFL reference and anime parody we spotted from the Chargers 2023 schedule release.

The outfit is the stylish fit of protagonist Giorno Giovanna with Kirk Cousins chains. Peep the banners in the stadium too for some laughs.

With a cute Psyduck too!

Cute, but also a funny roast of the Bears myriad of quarterbacks.

With a very funny to-do list behind him.

Of course Aaron Rodgers would go to the Hyperbolic Time Chamber.

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Every trolling reference we could find in the Chargers' 2023 anime ... - For The Win

"Oh, I threw up": Angelina Jolie Felt Sick to the Point of Nausea After … – FandomWire

Angelina Jolie has one of the most versatile filmographies in Hollywood. From action thrillers to adventure films, and intense dramas, the star has covered a wide range of roles that have showcased her vast talent as an actor. With the years, Jolie reinvented herself further to become a Marvel superhero in Eternals to play a modified and unique version of the antagonist in the re-imagination of Sleeping Beauty, Maleficent.

Jolies debut at the tender age of 17 was a sci-fi action thriller Cyborg 2 in which the actor shared screen space with Jack Palance who featured in Tim Burtons acclaimed Batman. While the film started the journey for Jolie to become a big star, the Girl, Interrupted actor did not have the easiest time watching her work in the film.

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In her film debut, Angelina Jolie played Casella Cash Reese, a cyborg assassin gifted with the ability to emulate human emotions. The film was an adventurous beginning for the star who was only 17 at the time. While Jolie packed a punch and committed to the film and the action wholeheartedly, she had a stomach-churning experience watching herself and the gore on screen. The actor stated,

Oh, I threw up. I did. I saw it and I threw up. Just nausea. theres a scene when Im decapitated and talking as one does. But, yeah, I saw it and got really sick. I just remember my brother Jamie [Haven] holding me and saying, Its going to be all right.

Jolie admitted though that she was thrilled to have been allowed to do kickboxing at such a young age and confessed that she thoroughly enjoyed the high that the experience gave her.

Also Read: I feel alive when Im afraid: Angelina Jolies Mental And Physical Health Took A Dreadful Hit While Filming Simon Wests $274M Box Office Success

In what is being termed as one of the biggest casting coups of recent times, two Oscar winners and Hollywood superstars Angelina Jolie and Halle Berry will collaborate for the first time in Warner Brothers Maude Vs Maude. Apart from featuring two powerful women on-screen, the film will also be produced by the two stars Berry and Jolie with Roseanne Liang on board to be the director.

While relevant information about the plot of the film and other details are yet to be revealed, inside sources say that it will be a global thriller with a Bond vs Bourne type vibe that will have multiple locations for the action to unfold. Both Angelina Jolie and Halle Berry are veterans of the genre. While Jolie starred in the hit action thrillers Salt and Mr. and Mrs. Smith,Berry played Jinx in the blockbuster Bond installment Die Another Day and has other action-heavy credits in John Wick: Chapter 3 Parabellum and the X-Men movies.

Also Read: It was a huge turn-on: Angelina Jolie Said She Had the Best S*x Ever With Denzel Washington After Divorcing Ex-Husband

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"Oh, I threw up": Angelina Jolie Felt Sick to the Point of Nausea After ... - FandomWire

Signs of the times the Zeitgeist moments when athletics and world … – World Athletics

Sport does not sit outside of society. And as a truly global sport, athletics, more than most, is influenced by what is happening in the wider world.

Over the 40 years since the World Athletics Championships was established in 1983, the world has changed remarkably, and athletics has changed with it. Occasionally, the World Championships has perfectly captured the spirit of the times in which they have been held.

From geopolitical shifts to cultural evolution, or revolution, these are some of the Zeitgeist moments of the World Championships.

I am woman, hear me roar.

The race for womens rights quickened in the 1970s around the world, and the introduction of the marathon to the womens programme at the first World Athletics Championships reflected the opening of doors to women in other walks of life.

Historically, some medical experts claimed that running the marathon distance, 26 miles 385 yards (42.195km), was dangerous for women's health. But through the 1970s, female athletes like Grete Waitz had pushed the boundaries of the accepted wisdom around their endurance capacities.

Such feats led to calls for the womens marathon to be included in the Olympic programme, but significant opposition remained.

However, the sports global governing body bit the bullet and announced it would be added to the programme for the inaugural World Championships in Helsinki. It would not only be the World Championships debut for the event, but the first time there had ever been a global championship for female marathon runners, beating the events Olympic debut by one year.

When Waitz lined up at the start in Helsinki, she was understandably the favourite.

She was already a four-time winner of the New York City Marathon and had added the London title on 17 April 1983 in a world record of 2:25:29, although Joan Benoit lowered the mark to 2:22:43 in Boston the following day. But Benoit had not qualified for the US team in the marathon, leaving Waitz as the fastest in the field in Helsinki.

The Norwegian lived up to that billing with victory in 2:28:09, having sufficient time to complete avictorylap of the 1952 Olympic Stadium before her nearest rivals entered it.

For all her experience, this was a novel moment for Waitz not just because of the status of the event, but also because she was running her first female-only race.

She said that the make-up of the race changed her tactics significantly, as there were no men around her to share the pacing responsibilities: "Here, the final time didn't really matter. The idea was to win the championship.

Geopolitics had intruded into sport and there werereciprocal Olympic boycotts at the Moscow 1980 and Los Angeles 1984 Games.

The US team was withdrawn from the Moscow Games and the Eastern Bloc was purposefully absent in Los Angeles, so the inaugural World Athletics Championships became a landmark global competitive opportunity for Soviet and United States athletes to compete against each other when the Cold War was at its height.

Carl Lewis won the mens 100m where the two Soviet competitors, Victor Bryzgin and Nikolay Sidorov, failed to reach the semifinals and he anchored the 4x100m team to gold in a world record of 37.86. The Soviet Union won an unlikely bronze.

Carl Lewis races off of the starting blocks in Helsinki in 1983 ( Getty Images)

The 4x400m worked out even better for the Soviet men as they took gold, with the United States, anchored by 400m hurdles champion Ed Moses, taking bronze.

The mens high jump produced gold forSoviet UnionsHennadiy Avdyeyenko, who cleared 2.32m, with Tyke Peacock of the United States earning silver on countback. Sergey Bubka won what would be the first of six world pole vault titles, and Sergey Litvinov took hammer gold.

In womens events, Mary Decker won the 1500m ahead of two Soviet Union athletes, and she also won the 3000m, where the Soviet Unions Tatyana Kazankina the 1976 Olympic 800m and 1500m champion was third.

In the womens high jump, gold went to the Soviet Unions Tamara Bykova with 2.01m, West Germanys Ulrike Meyfarth taking silver on 1.99m and Louise Ritter of the United States earning bronze with 1.95m.

The final medals table saw the United States finishing ahead of the Soviet Union by just one medal, with 24 medals (eight gold) to 23 (six golds).

Topping the table, however, was East Germany, with 10 golds among a total of 22 medals.

The emergence of China as a global power in the 1990s was also reflected in the athletics arena, at the Tokyo World Championships, where China won its first two global athletics titles.

The landmark first victory came in the womens shot put through Huang Zhihong.

She beat Russias world record-holder Natalya Lisovskaya in emphatic fashion, with all four of her counting efforts bettering the best effort of her rival. Huangs second round 20.83m was top, while Lisovskaya took silver with 20.29m.

Xu Demei then added further gold in the womens javelin, also beating a world record-holder. This was a tighter win, however, as her best effort of 68.78m was only 10cm farther than the silver medallist and world record-holder Petra Felke-Meier of East Germany.

The Chinese impetus had begun and the momentum has been maintained to the point where they are now ninth on the all-time World Championships medals table with 22 gold medals, 26 silver and 25 bronze.

In 1992, Chen Yueling earned Chinas first Olympic athletics gold, winning the womens 10km race walk in Barcelona.

The Tokyo World Championships occurred less than two years after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, which paved the way for a united Germany to compete on the world stage.

Katrin Dorre had the honour of winning the first medal for the unified team, on day two of competition, 25 August, as she earned bronze in the womens marathon behind Polands winner Wanda Panfil and silver medallist Sachiko Yamashita of Japan.

On 27 August there was a German gold rush as Katrin Krabbe claimed the first world title for her unified nation, winning the womens 100m, and then Lars Riedel (mens discus) and Sabine Braun (heptathlon) earned further victories.

Krabbe added the 200m title three days later, and Heike Henkel won the first of her two womens world high jump titles.

Germany finished third in the medals table, with five golds, four silvers and eight bronzes. USA topped the table with 10, 8, 8 and Soviet Union was second with 9, 9, 11.

This was also the last time that the Soviet Union would appear as a team at the World Championships. By the end of 1991, the winds of change had swept away the Soviet state.

The disbanding of the Soviet Union gave a new look to the medal table at the World Championships in Stuttgart, where Russia (3 gold, 8 silver, 5 bronze), Ukraine (1, 1, 2), Tajikistan (1, 0, 0), Belarus (0, 2, 2) and Kazakhstan (0, 1, 0) appeared for the first time in their own right.

Russias three gold medals came in the womens long jump (Anna Biryukova), womens discus throw (Olga Chernyavskaya) and womens 4x100m.

Bubka won his fourth consecutive pole vault world title, but his first for Ukraine, and Kazakhstans Grigoriy Yegorov took the silver.

Sergey Bubka competes in the pole vault at the 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart ( Allsport / Getty Images)

Tajikistan (Andrey Abduvaliya) and Belarus (Igor Astapkovich) took the top two medals in the mens hammer throw.

South Africa had been banned from the Olympic movement since 1962 due to its racial segregation, but negotiations to end apartheid began in 1990, and the nation re-joined the Olympic movement, creating the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee in 1991.

Elana Meyers silver medal in the 10,000m at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games was the first global athletics medal for her country since Malcolm Spence had finished third in the mens 400m at the 1960 Rome Olympics.

Meyers hopes to win a first World Championships medal for her country in Stuttgart were frustrated as she was baulked in the final by 15-year-old Sally Barsosio of Kenya. After being repeatedly spiked, Meyer dropped out, tearfully.

It was, nevertheless, a landmark appearance.

The first South Africa medal at the World Championships was won in Athens in 1997 as Llewellyn Herbert took silver in the mens 400m hurdles, clocking 48.31 behind Stephane Diagana of France, who won in 48.14.

The first South African gold medal at the World Championships also arrived in Athens, on 5 August, when Marius Corbett won the javelin with 88.40m, beating Britains Steve Backley with 86.80m.

Namibia, which became independent of South Africa in 1990, was first to claim big medals thanks to Frankie Fredericks, who won 200m gold in Stuttgart in a championship record of 19.85, while Namibias Luketz Swartbooi took silver in the marathon behind Mark Plaatjes South African-born but recently switched to represent the United States.

As television rights revenue exploded in the 1980s, the march to professionalism across sport became irresistible. In 1985, the International Olympic Committee agreed to allow professional athletes to compete in tennis, football and ice hockey at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, opening the door for full professionalism to sweep through athletics.

Prize money was paid at a World Championships for the first time at the 1997 edition in Athens, with individual gold medallists getting $60,000, and $100,000 being on offer for world records.

Coincidentally it was in Athens that the first big shift away from amateurism in the sport took place when, in 1982, the IAAF Congress introduced the concept of trust funds for elite athletes into which money could be paid to assist in training and travel.

The first of the biennial World Championships, the 1993 edition in Stuttgart, became the first edition offering material rewards for winning athletes.

While calls for prize money were resisted, the IAAF arranged for event sponsor Mercedes-Benz to provide each of the 40 individual event winners with one of its new "C" class cars or its cash value of $28,000.

But it was only a matter of time before shamateurism was laid to rest. And in 1997 the IAAF enabled prize money to be paid directly in its competitions, putting aside $19million for that purpose to cover 1997 to 1999.

At last years World Athletics Championships in Oregon, the total prize money had risen to nearly $8.5 million. In individual events, gold medal winners received $70,000, with $35,000 for silver and $22,000 for bronze. Additionally, there were $100,000 bonuses available for gold medal winners who broke a world record.

In 1991, Australia embarked on a long, slow process of reconciliation with its indigenous people. That political and cultural process coincided with the emergence of a young indigenous sprinter, who sprang into public consciousness when she won a gold medal at the 1990 Auckland Commonwealth Games in the 4x100m relay, aged just 16.

By 1997, Cathy Freeman was one of the worlds best sprinters, an Olympic silver medallist in the 400m. In Athens she became the first indigenous Australian to win a world athletics title as she secured the womens 400m gold, which she successfully defended in 1999 in Seville.

Cathy Freeman celebrates her 400m win at the 1997 World Championships in Athens ( Allsport / Getty Images)

At the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, she became the face of reconciliation in Australia, when she was chosen to light the Olympic cauldron on behalf of her country, before carrying her nations hopes to victory in the 400m 10 days later. On her victory lap, she carried both the Australian and indigenous flags.

Reflecting the slow march to equality for women in society, it took 34 years for the World Championships to reach parity in events, at the London 2017 edition, where men and women each contested 24 events. The womens programme had gained a second walk, the 50km race walk.

Since the inaugural 1983 World Championships, the introduction of new events for women has been a steady process.

The 10,000m was introduced in 1987; the 5000m replaced the 3000m in 1995; the triple jump was added in 1993; the 20km walk was added in 1999, replacing the 10km walk that first appeared in 1987; the pole vault was introduced in 1999, as was the hammer throw; and in 2005 the 3000m steeplechase was added to the womens programme.

The addition of the womens 50km walk for the London 2017 World Championships carried over to the Doha 2019 World Championships. At the 2022 World Championships in Oregon the second womens race walk was contested over 35km.

Mike Rowbottom for World Athletics

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Signs of the times the Zeitgeist moments when athletics and world ... - World Athletics

Experts discuss growth of Constitutional Sheriff movement during … – Shaw Local News Network

U.S. Rep. Sean Casten, D-Downers Grove, hosted a virtual panel over the weekend at which he and four others discussed rising extremism and right-wing sheriffs, which he said represents an incredibly dangerous movement.

The panel featured Casten, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law Professor Jason DeSanto, lawyer and journalist Jessica Pishko, NAACP Legal Defense Fund Public Safety Project Manager Puneet Cheema and University of Illinois-Chicago School of Law Professor Steven Schwinn. They all spoke about the Constitutional Sheriffs Movement and their views on the dangers of the group.

DeSanto moderated the event and provided a bit of history on the Constitutional Sheriffs Movement and its rising traction in Illinois.

The movement began in 2011 and gained traction in Illinois after the Protect Illinois Communities Act was signed by Gov. JB Pritzker in January, DeSanto said. The act was a response to the July 4, 2022, shooting in Highland Park and banned the sale and distribution of assault weapons in Illinois. After the signing of the act, sheriffs representing 90 counties in Illinois said they would not enforce it, viewing it as a violation of the Second Amendment.

[This] movement, often framed in terms of liberty, may actually be a growing threat to liberty, to our Constitutional system and to our Constitutional rights, DeSanto said at the start of the event.

Casten said DuPage County Sheriff James Mendrick is one of the 90 sheriffs who said they would not enforce the act, which led Casten to discuss the topic with him in what Casten called a heated conversation.

Casten in January called for Mendrick to retract a statement about the states new gun ban or resign. In the statement, Mendrick said he believed the states new ban on high-powered guns and high-capacity magazines was unconstitutional.

In early February, Mendrick said he was not threatened with censure during a meeting with DuPage County Board Chair Deb Conroy and States Attorney Robert Berlin.

Discussing the movement in Washington, D.C., with an unnamed Republican representative from what Casten called a very rural state, his colleague said the Constitutional Sheriffs Movement is the most dangerous thing happening in America, Casten said.

Casten warned of the ideology of the movement that includes the belief that when sheriffs are in their own county, their powers supersede those of any law enforcement officer, employee or other elected official of any level of government all the way up to the president.

Richard Mack, the founder of the movement, Casten said, also is a member of the Oath Keepers, a group whose members were involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Oath Keepers asks members to willingly violate any law they personally believe violates the Constitution.

There is a deep rot that this is tied to a lot of our system, Casten said. This is a real problem. I am not for a moment suggesting the police are racist or tied to slavery. What I am suggesting, though, is that there has always been a history a direct link between white supremacy and the desire to expand the powers of local law enforcement at the expense of the federal government and that tension is now being manifested in local law enforcement agencies.

The panel was livestreamed on Castens Facebook page and can be viewed there. It has received a variety of comments from users, some supporting and thanking Casten for convening the panel and others criticizing him for subverting the Constitution, exclaiming their support instead for the Constitutional Sheriffs Movement.

Casten did not participate much in the conversation, allowing the panelists to share their experiences and knowledge of the movement and its dangers. He said he believes they are the experts, and after hearing the panelists speak, he said he wanted to leave the audience with two thoughts.

I think it is factually accurate to refer to this as a right-wing movement, Casten said. Im also nervous when we say that because whoever you voted for in the last election should not color your concern here, and wherever you sit on this, I would ask you to recognize theres a celebration of vigilantism in our culture that is not from the left or the right its something in the American zeitgeist.

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Experts discuss growth of Constitutional Sheriff movement during ... - Shaw Local News Network

How We Loved and Lost the Hot Girl Summer – The Swaddle

When Megan Thee Stallion first coined the term Hot Girl Sh*t in her song Cash Shit which released in 2019, she could not have envisioned her lyric kickstarting the new crown mantra for the body positivity movement, or a cultural reset that actually made you feel good about yourself, summer or not. Hot Girl Summer is easier to visualize than describe, but Ill try anyway. In the words of Stallion herself, Its about women and men being unapologetically them, just having a good-ass time, hyping up their friends, doing you. You definitely have to be a person who can be the life of the party and just a bad bitch.

In the Summer of 2019, all it took was one tweet from her, to start a moment that reframed health, happiness, and self sufficiency as hot unapologetically. If you deconstruct the term, hot girl summer is a largely feminine-coded term, and owes its origin to black women.

In the cultural zeitgeist, Hot Girl Summer worked, even in countries where summer is a far away dream is because you dont have to go anywhere, nor put yourself in harms way, nor ponder extraterrestrial life to have a Hot Girl Summer. You focus on your earthbound self and what it means to live your best life, in your own skin, as per a Buzzfeed article. This phrase has now gained so much traction that Megan had to fight a two year long legal battle to trademark the term, and earn full ownership.

The internet then did to it what it does best memefication, and co-option. Soon enough, every brand joined the bandwagon of Hot Girl Summer, with Wendys declaring their lemonade to be the The Official Drink of Hot Girl Summer, and beauty brands such as Maybelline and Fenty Beauty adding their own twist to this momentum. Hot Girl Summer became the lifestyle choice not only in 2019, but the coming years as well.

But retail brands co-opting it as an attempt to ride the cultural wave had a damaging impact. It led to a conversation on brands appropriating black culture and lingo without treating black people fairly, as an article in Bitch Media notes. The cosmetic industry has not been kind to the black community, be it in terms of exclusion in skin shades, or hair products and Wendys also came under fire for acts of racism in the past. The article goes on to state, If you dont support Black women, give them access, and make them feel seen in the products youre peddling, then you shouldnt adopt their intraracial phrases to line your pockets.

Related on The Swaddle:

Why Retailers Rebranding as Woke Is Disingenuous

Hot girl summer was less an aesthetic and more a state of mind you dont have to be conventionally petite and skinny, you dont have to be a model, you dont even have to be a girl a hot girl is anybody that oozes confidence and charisma, and lives their truth. In her interview with Variety, Stallion lists the rules that embody a Hot Girl, You just have to be the life of the party, you have to be kind, you have to be confident and you have to like try to vote! But when brands adopted the phrase they turned it into its antithesis. It did, inevitably, become an aesthetic one that drew more attention to ones body than was otherwise warranted.

The past couple years have not been great, to put it mildly. Amidst the world burning (literally), political outrages, and a persistent threat for the unseen future, summer no longer represents or celebrates the joy of life, and Hot Girl Summer is one path to some much needed respite. Hot Girl Summer owes its genesis to not only Stallion, but also those who paved the road for her, such as the Riot grrrl movement, the Girl Power movement, Spice Girls, and third wave feminist politics.

Buzzfeed goes on to describe this vision as a means to inspire this kind of jaw-dropping awe of feminine agency without completely forgoing men if you dont want to. (Its more no boys needed than no boys allowed.)

Although this phrase has largely positive intonations, it became commodified under the aegis of body positivity, and nothing was the same again. Reclaiming body positivity is no new phenomenon, and despite the repetitive chants of Hot(ness) is a mindset, summer remains intrinsically linked to bikini bodies, summer shredding, and conventionally attractive body types perhaps even more so today, in the age of Ozempic. When brands co-opt this mantra to promote diet culture under the guise of fitness, the momentum of the movement shifts.

Michelle Carroll, in her fitness blog, speaks of how during the summer, advertising is directed at getting you ready for summer, through cosmetic procedures, cellulite-reducing creams, spray tans, gyms, fat-burners, laser hair removal. In essence, they control your environment. By surrounding your physical and virtual world with reminders that you still have work to do before you even dream of setting foot outside in the summer months, you are more likely to spend, spend, spend! Capitalism does not care for body image. These tactics get the brands their desired exposure, but ultimately contribute to a debilitating body image.

A study conducted by Scott Griffiths et al reported on the fluctuations seen in body image through the seasons. As hypothesized, in summer they observed peaks for body dissatisfaction alongside peaks in four proposed seasonal body image mechanisms: pressure from media advertisements, pressure from peers on social media, the feeling that ones body is on public display, and appearance comparisons.

The beauty and fashion industry ruthlessly capitalizes on our insecurities and anxieties, and at the end of the day, a movement targeted towards upliftment and inclusivity, ended up doing nothing but putting us down again. Hot Girl Summer was for everyone now, against the spirit of its origins, its back to residing in billboards and perfect Instagram ads.

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How We Loved and Lost the Hot Girl Summer - The Swaddle

The Totally Rockin’ History of Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem – Collider

After so many years on our big and small screens, as well as in our hearts, the Muppets are part of the zeitgeist. You'd be hard-pressed to find a person, young or old, who doesn't know about Kermit, his complex relationship with Miss Piggy, or his long list of iconic felt friends. Why then is Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem so shrouded in obscurity? The band has appeared in every major incarnation of the Muppets, from the very beginning, but with the exception of fan-favorite Animal, very few know their names or history as the Muppet's house band.

Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, or just "Electric Mayhem" as they're often known, is a rock band made up of resident musicians of the Muppet Theatre. The band is usually made up of lead singer and keyboardist Dr. Teeth, bassist Floyd Pepper, saxophonist Zoot, lead guitarist and singer Janice, drummer Animal, and trumpeter Lips. Now with the band starring in their own spin-off series on Disney+, here's everything you need to know before watching The Muppets Mayhem.

RELATED: 'The Muppets Mayhem' Review: Dr. Teeth and Company Are Ready to Rock

After the success of Sesame Street which began in 1969, Jim Henson and his company featured their Muppet characters in TV segments during the early '70s, namely on Saturday Night Live. This gave Henson a taste for a more adult brand of Muppet entertainment, which encouraged him to branch out while simultaneously continuing with his children's educational programming on Sesame Street. The Muppet Show would be aimed at an adult audience, focusing on sketch comedy, and began with a TV pilot titled, The Muppets Valentine Show. The 1974 half-hour special guest-starred Mia Farrow and reintroduced '50s and '60s Muppets such as Kermit and Rowlf to a new audience.

This was then followed up by another pilot, The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence in 1975, in which the Muppets parodied the rapid growth of sex and violence on TV. Sex and Violence marked the very first appearance of Electric Mayhem, including all its usual members sans Lips. The band's introduction doesn't get much more rock 'n' roll, but America wasn't ready for such a raunchy puppet show just yet. Although this was successful in rebranding the Muppets as more adult in content (something that has since been replicated in 2015's sitcom The Muppets and 2018's The Happytime Murders) it failed to get the show picked up by ABC or any other American broadcaster at the time.

The Electric Mayhem band members were designed by creator Jim Henson and his team, including Michael K. Firth, Bonnie Erickson, Don Sahlin, and Dave Goelz. Henson and Goelz were among the original Electric Mayhem performers, which also included Frank Oz and Richard Hunt. The band resembled and represented the idea of popular bands of the '70s as a whole, and Henson and his team even based individual band members on specific musicians of the time. In look, name and character, Dr. Teeth is inspired by the American singer-songwriter Malcolm John Rebennack Jr., better known as Dr. John. This six-time Grammy winner was a celebrated New Orleans blues, jazz, funk, and R&B musician until his death in 2019.

Dr. Teeth and his band are also partly inspired by Elton John, with Gato Barbieri serving as inspiration for saxophonist Zoot and Janice Joplin directly influencing the Muppet Janice in style and in name. Karen Falk, the Jim Henson Company's historian and archivist, stated, "At that time, Jim had a strong interest in the counter-culture movement (as evidenced by his experimental film Youth '68) and sought to reflect that in the composition of the band. One proposal from about 1970 says that the band would do songs like 'Sunshine' from Hair. In fact, they are all dressed to out-hair the Hair cast." Floyd Pepper was inspired by the Sgt. Pepper-era John Lennon, and Animal is based on The Who's Keith Moon, making Electric Mayhem the world's greatest supergroup in essence.

After ABC and all other American networks passed on both pilots, British ATV producer Lew Grade agreed to co-produce The Muppet Show with Henson, debuting the series in syndication in 1976. This marked the return of Electric Mayhem as well as the first appearance of several beloved Muppet icons such as Fozzie Bear, Gonzo, and even Miss Piggy. Needless to say, The Muppet Show was a major hit over its five-season run, growing in popularity as a vaudevillian sketch-variety show. In it, Electric Mayhem took on the role of the show's house band and occasionally the pit orchestra, even welcoming guest members such Don Knotts and Hal Linden to perform with them.

During The Muppets: Sex and Violence, one musician is seen among the band who never again played with Electric Mayhem. His name was Jim. Jim was a banjo player, designed to look like Muppets-creator Jim Henson, and was usually seen as part of his other band, The Country Trio. The trio, made up of Jim, Frank and Jerry were all modeled on their respective performers, and featured in various variety shows throughout the 1970s as well as The Muppet Show. Only one Muppet musician ever joined Electric Mayhem after its debut and managed to remain a permanent member to this day, though, and his name is Lips.

During The Muppet Show's fifth and final season, the band welcomed its trumpeter Lips, who was inspired by Louis Armstrong. Performer Steve Whitmire recalls, "I wanted to do this Louis Armstrong kind of voice and at that point and time, there was some question as to whether or not we would offend African American people by this white guy doing a black voice as a trumpet player." As a result, Lips was kept quiet for decades. Dave Goelz stated in 2013 that "Whitmire has been frustrated that for thirty years he hasnt really found a character hook for Lips the trumpet player." Goelz continued to state that a few months prior to the interview, Lips was required to state "but we don't have any instruments" and in a moment of clarity, Whitmire finally discovered Lips' character and way of speaking. "The character was born after 30-odd years in labor."

The Muppets went from strength to strength, branching off into multiple movies including The Muppet Movie, The Great Muppet Caper and The Muppets Take Manhattan throughout the '70s and '80s. In 1990, the band welcomed another short-lived member, during their appearance in The Muppets at Walt Disney World. Clifford first appeared the year prior, in The Jim Henson Hour where he was the bass player for Solid Foam. When playing with Electric Mayhem at Walt Disney World, Clifford took on the role of auxiliary percussionist. Clifford was a guest alongside Kermit on The Arsenio Hall Show to promote their most recent production, where he revealed he likes to be spanked and admitted that his career choices were to join either the Muppets or Milli Vanilli (with whom Clifford shares a resemblance). Although Clifford would not play with Electric Mayhem more than once, he went on to find success as the host of Muppets Tonight in 1996.

In 1992's The Muppet Christmas Carol Electric Mayhem played the role of the Fozziewig's Christmas party band, with Animal struggling to limit himself to slow Victorian-era music. They then appeared as the pirates' entertainment aboard the ship in 1996's Muppet Treasure Island and performed in the Poppyfields in 2005's The Muppets' Wizard of Oz. In the latter, they arrive late to perform backup for the Wicket Witch of the West as a result of their beaten-up tour bus, a common occurrence for Electric Mayhem's modes of transportation.

Speaking of buses, the band's 1966 International Harvester Loadstar Carpenter debuted in The Muppet Movie in 1979 and featured in that year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, solidifying its iconic status. It returned in 1999's Muppets From Space, having been updated from its classic '70s style to feature '90s appropriate CDs on the ceiling instead of 45s. After this, the original bus was auctioned on eBay for $50,000 along with a Brian Henson-signed letter of authenticity. A search was conducted by Disney in 2010 to find the original bus, so it could be featured in the 2011 movie The Muppets, but it was soon discovered to have been destroyed. A recreation was used for the reboot.

After the critical, commercial and awards success of The Muppets, ABC learned from its mistakes in the 1970s and produced an adult Muppets sitcom, this time in the workplace mock-documentary style of The Office and Parks and Recreation. It also harkened to 30 Rock in premise, as it featured the Muppets' behind-the-scenes life working on Miss Piggy's celebrity talk show. Electric Mayhem served as the show's band, and the series debuted their new wheels, a psychedelic Volkswagen Microbus. It's this new bus that features heavily in the marketing for their new Disney+ spin-off series The Muppets Mayhem, and serves as their primary mode of transport for a large portion of the new series.

After decades of being reliable supporting players in the Muppets universe, The Muppets Mayhem, which is now streaming on Disney+, finally puts the spotlight directly on the band. Current Dr. Teeth performer Bill Barretta is also a co-creator of the show, and Goelz, as he has done since the beginning, plays Zoot.

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The Totally Rockin' History of Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem - Collider

‘How to Blow Up a Pipeline’ director Daniel Goldhaber explains the … – The Real News Network

The title alone ofHow to Blow Up a Pipelinehas raised its share of eyebrowsand drawn condemnations from right-wing critics. The film, based on anon-fiction book of the same nameby Andreas Malm, depicts a fictional attempt by a group of young climate activists to take action against the fossil fuel industry. But what is the political purpose driving the film adaptationand does it actually teach viewers how to blow up pipelines? Director Daniel Goldhaber joins TRNN contributor Anders Lee to explain the vision behind the film, the intervention it seeks to make, and what lessons it can offer in a world on fire.

Daniel Goldhaberis an American director, screenwriter, and producer whose most recent work isHow to Blow Up a Pipeline

Post-production: Jules Taylor

Anders Lee: Anders Lee here. Welcome to The Real News. The movie How to Blow Up a Pipeline tells the story of five young people, all affected by fossil capitalism in different ways, who take climate justice into their own hands with an active industrial sabotage. Inspired by a nonfiction book bearing the same name, How to Blow Up a Pipeline grapples with questions of desperation, of strategy, and the roles of both violence and art in social movements. To discuss these themes and more, Im speaking with the films director, Daniel Goldhaber.

All right, today were joined by Daniel Goldhaber, the director of How to Blow Up a Pipeline, which is now in theaters. Daniel, thank you for joining The Real News.

Daniel Goldhaber: Thank you so much for having me.

Anders Lee: You conceived of this movie with a few other people during the height of the pandemic when a lot of social movements, especially the climate movement, were overtaken by a sense of powerlessness. How did the pieces come together to make this movie happen out of that?

Daniel Goldhaber: Oh, thats a big question. It was a lot of pieces. It was having a really great team to work with across the board, really amazing collaborators from my co-filmmakers to our cast and to our crew, and also to our financiers, who really gave us the support to make this movie exactly the way that it needed to be made. So this was really a team effort from start to finish.

Anders Lee: And I know the title of the movie is also the title of a book, of course, by Andreas Malm, who you had an open line of communication with throughout the process of making a film. What was it specifically about this book that inspired you to make a movie about it? And are you aware of any other nonfiction theoretical polemics that have been turned into narrative films?

Daniel Goldhaber: I dont know of any others, but if somebody knows one, I would love to be able to answer the question with that knowledge. I think that theres a number of things about the book that are really inspirational. I think reading it, you get a sense of action and activity thats very exciting. I think, obviously, the title itself suggests an action on its own, and I think that thats also very exciting, because the book doesnt actually tell you how to blow a pipeline, but it suggests immediately a movie and a genre film in which you can actually get into the details. So I think it was that perfect fusion of subject matter, of some ideas that felt really valuable to explore, and then in concert with something that could also make for a really thrilling and fresh heist film.

Anders Lee: Right. And because you were in contact with Malm, which feels like a really interesting aspect of this, what was his reaction at first when you told him you wanted to make a movie out of this? And what was it like to work with him throughout the process?

Daniel Goldhaber: I think that he was maybe initially a little bit surprised, but I think only because you dont really write a manifesto like this and expect Hollywood to come knocking at your door. I think that Hollywood is not exactly known for its radical sympathies. But after, I think, he got over that initial surprise, I think he was very excited about it. I think that he understood the ways that the movie and the book were fundamentally different, but also the ways that the movie could help communicate his message on a broader cultural level.

Anders Lee: Now you are the son, I believe, of climatologists, and you previously had made a documentary about climate change.

Daniel Goldhaber: I just worked on one as an assistant.

Anders Lee: Okay.

Daniel Goldhaber: Yeah.

Anders Lee: But one of the characters in the film is also part of a crew. He does the boom mic, I believe. What do you see having now done a nonfiction and a narrative movie about some of the same subject matter? What do you see as the main differences, and what are those experiences like in how they differ?

Daniel Goldhaber: Documentary and narrative, I think, have very different ethical considerations that you have to have in mind when you do them. One of the things about making a narrative film is youre not toying with real peoples lives. You have a different contract with an audience. And also I think that you have the ability to sometimes Something that my editor, Dan, says is that documentaries can be very good at representing the world as it is now, but not necessarily very good at representing a world that could be. And I think that with Pipeline, we very much wanted to represent a world that could be, and were suggesting and exploring a specific hypothetical action.

I think that, more specifically to the point of the problem of climate change, I think that there was a moment in which climate documentary was very valuable because there wasnt a lot of awareness. That had to be raised. And again, as the child of climate scientists and keenly plugged into just how much skepticism there has been about the movement. But I think were at the point now where, especially in a post-COVID moment, everybody on planet Earth more or less has been touched by climate change, that its critical to remember that [inaudible] is climate, and that whether or not there are holdouts in the denial category, that nevertheless, were in a place of needing to change the conversation from awareness to action. And I think that you cant really easily necessarily do that with a documentary, though Im sure that there are great docs being made today about some of the actions being taken by activists. I think that with this, we wanted to explore a hypothetical action.

Anders Lee: And it makes me think of An Inconvenient Truth thats being maybe the first wave of climate change in a cinematic way, which was, of course, came out in 2006. And do you think that a movie like How to Blow Up a Pipeline could have been made back then? Or is it unique to this zeitgeist we have in the early 2020s?

Daniel Goldhaber: I think it would just be different had it been made back then, and certainly the movie wouldve had to explain climate change to the audience. I think that one of the things that makes Pipeline a shift, or I think one of the things thats different about it in contrast to some films that have come before it is we dont really talk about Well, we do talk about the stakes of climate. We do talk about the impact of the oil and gas industry on peoples health, on peoples land, on peoples lives. But I think the movie accepts that you are aware of whats happening in the world around you. And I think that thats an assumption that, again, couldnt have really been made until a post-COVID moment.

Anders Lee: [Inaudible] spend much time debunking right-wing talking points, thats for sure.

Daniel Goldhaber: Yeah.

Anders Lee: Well, you mentioned criticism of the climate movement from the right, but it has also been criticized, perhaps unfairly, as being predominantly white, yet the cast in this movie is quite racially diverse. Im wondering if you view that casting as correcting certain tropes about environmentalists, or was it perhaps an aspirational way?

Daniel Goldhaber: In all honesty, all of these people in the film are based on real people in the climate movement or real people in our own lives that we were thinking about. I think that, obviously, there are racial divides and privilege divides in the climate movement, but in many ways those have been easing. I think, especially, its important to recognize that most people that have been most directly affected by climate disruption have been Black and Brown people, have been minority communities and poorer communities. Theyre the brunt.

The characters of Theo and Sochi were directly inspired by some Latina activists, Latina and Black activists in a community in Houston that we borrowed from a book called What Were Fighting For is Each Other by Wen Stevenson. But then you have the character, Michael, he is an Indigenous extremist, but certainly Indigenous people have been at the forefront of the climate and the environmental movement since time immemorial. And so I think that more than being a corrective, I think if its a corrective, its a corrective in trying to actually represent the diversity of the different kinds of people and experiences that have fed into the climate movement.

Anders Lee: Right. Well, something else that the characters really grapple with in the film is the term terrorist or terrorism. Certain radical scholars have argued that thats not a term people should use since it can be weaponized by the state. So its really interesting to see the characters having that same discussion. Do you agree with that assessment, or do you have an opinion on the term terrorist? Is it something that we should avoid or is it something that people who are engaged, perhaps, in industrial sabotage should take on?

Daniel Goldhaber: I dont really know if I have a clear opinion on that. Heres what I feel certain about. You have people who are being essentially turned into political prisoners of the US state using post-9/11 terrorism laws, terrorism enhancement laws that have allowed the government to charge people like Jessica Reznicek and Ruby Montoya with terrorism for poking holes in the Dakota Access pipeline before there was even oil running through it. I think that its more important to focus on the ways that the US government is using the word terrorist and the terrorism enhancement to brand people as somehow worse than criminals, or really, fundamentally, to suppress speech and dissent and to suppress a movement thats simply just trying to protect our ability to continue living on planet Earth.

And obviously, youre seeing an even greater escalation of that tactic in Cop City in Atlanta, where completely peaceful protestors are being charged with domestic terrorism enhancements for simply attending a completely non-violent, non-destructive rally. So the only evidence being proffered being that they have dirt on their shoes because other people potentially had burned tractors. So I think that its more important to focus on those human rights abuses. And I think that, ultimately, then when it comes to the nature of how activists engage, its about whats necessary for them to defend their own speech, right to protest, and right to justice. And so I think whatever gets us there is good.

And part of the reason I dont take a strict position is I think Ive just heard both sides and positions from the movement itself. Ive talked to people who believe that you do need to defang the word [and Ive] talked to people who bristle and worry about it, because if you embrace the label, you legitimize what the states using to criminalize your speech. So its a difficult thing to navigate, but I think, again, thats why its all the more important to have eyes on what the state is doing.

Anders Lee: Right. And do you see that escalating in the coming years as the environmental movement hopefully gets more serious about these sorts of things? Are you concerned about the blowback that we could see from the federal government classifying environmental climate activists as terrorists? And what measures do you think could be taken that we havent seen yet?

Daniel Goldhaber: Absolutely. Its not even abstract. Its here. You know what I mean, its already happening. Yeah.

Anders Lee: Well, again, one of the things I found really interesting about the movie is the characters working through these problems, many of which I know you discussed with Andreas Malm. One critique of his work revolves around the concept of the propaganda of the deed, that we need a mass movement and individual acts of violence or sabotage may not be what it takes to get us there, at least on their own. How did you reconcile that argument in making the film?

Daniel Goldhaber: Can you repeat? Im a little confused about exactly which two arguments Im reconciling there.

Anders Lee: The propaganda, the deed, so industrial sabotage, for instance, do you think that its a fair critique that may not galvanize a mass movement in the way that we need? Or is that something that you incorporated by thinking into the

Daniel Goldhaber: I see what youre saying. I think Andreas does not think that there is a silver bullet to climate change. And I think that ultimately what Andreas is The way I read the book and the text is essentially as a three-part argument. There has never been a social justice movement in history that is not engaged in the disruption of civil life, and generally speaking, the destruction of property and the sabotage of the state that the climate movement and the existential threat of the climate movement and the timeline of the climate movement is such that it requires some form of escalation of tactics in order to succeed based on the historical precedence that come before it.

And then I think he makes a bit of a novel jump, which is the reason why I think his took off where other similar arguments like this have maybe not, which is to say, well, whats the target? Because I think the problem is that when it comes to climate, its such a mass systemic problem that you cant point to one industry or government or leader or individual whos responsible. We all participate in it, some to a far greater and some a far lesser degree. But you consume, and if you exist in a contemporary capitalist, especially urban, life, you are participating in the destruction of the planet. So were asking this question: what do you do if you are going to engage in these historically precedented acts, what do you attack? Because I think that theres one thing about attacking the police station when youre suffering from police violence, that target makes sense. And I think that what the conclusion Malm drives is that we need to destroy the machines that are killing us.

And beyond that, theres no ethical justification for the continued existence of fossil fuel infrastructure. This question of why is it that destroying an oil pipeline is seen as an act of violence, but the oil pipeline that destroys so many lives is not seen as a violent piece of property. So thats the argument of the book as I read it. And I think that, ultimately, thats what weve translated into the film, is its a story about eight people who believe that the destruction of this oil pipeline is an act of self-defense.

But Malm is very aware in the book that what hes discussing is what a radical flank to the climate movement would look like and how it could be defensible. Whats great about a radical flank is it does not de-legitimize more mainstream efforts to then compromise with a state and a system in order to move forward. But I think that the point that hes making is that without some sort of radical flank effort, the mainstream movement will simply always lack the leverage to do whats necessary, especially when dealing with a problem and a social ill as abstract as climate disruption.

So I think that there are criticisms of that that are in the film itself. You have characters like Alicia and Sean and other characters who are pushing back and searching, questioning why theyre doing what theyre doing. But ultimately, I think that we are trying to simply present his argument through a dramatic structure.

Anders Lee: Another thing I found really effective is a motif throughout the movie of oil refineries that made it into the background at several points. And you mentioned fossil fuel infrastructure. Do you think its fair to say that the villain of the movie isnt a person or group of people, per se, but that infrastructure itself, and how did you go about conveying that?

Daniel Goldhaber: Yeah, I think that was part of the novelized structure that the movie suggests. And its even in the sound design. We have this exactingly realistic sound design, except for the fossil fuel infrastructure, which has this larger than life dystopian vibe. And thats a way in which I think the genre of the film also supports the thematic efforts of the film, that there is no individual bad guy, there is only the infrastructure. And I think that thats very, very helpful, because I think that one of the failures of the climate movement is trying to manifest the enemy as a person when there is no single individual. I have a great belief that people actually have a fairly strong sense of moral hypocrisy. And I think that when theyre presented with moral hypocrisy, especially when youre trying to change somebodys mind, it becomes impossible. And I think that thats one of the things about this thats compelling, is that in destroying a pipeline there is at the very [inaudible] moral purity to the act and its defensibility.

Anders Lee: Well, I dont want to give any spoilers, or I guess I shouldve just warned Spoiler alert But there is a pipeline that does get blown up in the movie, and I know you did not want to use CGI for this in particular. So what was it like to produce a massive explosion like that in real time?

Daniel Goldhaber: Extremely fun. Its a good time. I think that the funny thing is it was much harder to build the pipeline than it was to blow it up. I think thats the moral of the story. And so I think, in part, just because you need to blow something up that you can clean up, isnt going to produce shrapnel, that you can actually build affordably. You cant use screws. It has to hold up under New Mexico weather conditions and high winds and rains. That was a significant challenge. The blowing it up was the easy part.

Anders Lee: And I take it you were not running oil through this pipeline.

Daniel Goldhaber: Oh, of course not. It was made out of cardboard.

Anders Lee: And you mentioned the precautions you take. Specifically what did you do to make sure this wasnt causing deleterious effects to the environment where you filmed?

Daniel Goldhaber: We just cleaned up the trash. It wasnt any more polluting than that. It was cardboard and wood. Well, I think the cardboard, I believe, was recyclable.

Anders Lee: Well, Im particularly interested in that choice because, of course, now a lot of movies rely on CGI. Why was it important to you to actually use the real life pyrotechnics and not depend on animation with this?

Daniel Goldhaber: I think its because the movie is supposed to feel real. And I think that the provocation of the movie is its immediacy and its sense that its a possibility. And it was also, honestly, to some extent, a matter of price. We explored it. Also, we couldnt have afforded a strong CGI explosion that looked halfway decent. And there is CGI enhancement to the explosion itself. We had to do some cleanup work on it, but its about getting that real plate is the big thing.

Anders Lee: Yeah. Now, some people have described this as a heist movie, an eco-heist movie. I know you yourself have said that you are genre-agnostic, so I wont ask you to categorize the movie, but what were some of the cinematic influences that you drew from in making it?

Daniel Goldhaber: Oh, I would definitely say its a heist movie. I think Im a genre-agnostic when it comes to my own work, but this is definitely a heist film, very consciously. There were a lot of different influences that went into it though. On the heist side of things, Oceans Eleven, Thief, Charlie Varrick, and its corner case movies like Army of Shadows, the Jean-Pierre Melville film, which is not really a heist film, but hes a master of heist genre, and thats a similarly political movie that is actually secretly a heist film in its structure and in the way it moves.

We were also looking at movies like Zabriskie Point, [inaudible], Battle of Algiers, If a Tree Falls, Woman at War, Night Moves. And in some cases, like Night Moves, which is by a filmmaker who I adore, Kelly Reichardt. I think we were also looking at a bit of a tendency in movies about progressive movements and contemporary progressive movements to be tragedies and movies about failure. And I think thats something that was really important to us with this film was to conceptualize success.

Anders Lee: Right. Well, that brings me to my next question. Do you have an ideal audience for this picture? And if so, what kind of thinking or action do you hope that is inspired in them?

Daniel Goldhaber: I think that its art, so I think that art that tries to inspire a particular prescriptive thing is usually not very good art. I think that the goal is to provoke conversation and empathy. And in this case, I think its to present eight characters who believe that blowing up a pipeline is an act of self-defense. So maybe challenge audiences, what do you think about that, and how does that align with your If you believe that that is true, what does that mean for the way that you think about the climate movement, the way that you think about the nature of praxis? And I think that we hope that its a film that people can come to with wherever they are politically.

Anders Lee: Well, I think thats a great note to end on. Do you have any other projects or anything in the works?

Daniel Goldhaber: Im shooting my third film right now in New Orleans: Faces of Death, and very excited to bring it to the world. Its about content moderation and cycles of violence online.

Anders Lee: Right. Well, it will be on the lookout for that, but in the meantime, Daniel Goldhaber, thank you for joining us.

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