Fantastic Friday: Get Bentley

Posted on September 26, 2025 by Mac McEntire

Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. We’ve spent a lot of time with the genius kids from the Future Foundation, but now it’s time for their first big superhero slugfest in FF vol. 2 #7.

While the Fantastic Four are away on their year-long expedition of time and space, a temporary replacement four – Ant-Man, Medusa, She-Hulk, and newcomer Darla Deering – runs the Future Foundation in their place, except the original Four didn’t return when expected, leaving this ragtag bunch on their own. Further complicating matters, Medusa has been acting erratically. She ran off with Bentley-23 and joined up with the Wizard and Blastaar the Living Bomb-burst, all of whom then transported the new Baxter Building into the Negative Zone.

This issue begins with the Wizard stressing the importance of family to Bentley, who responds, “I’m not your son.” (Remember that in their last encounter, wannabe supervillain Bentley actually rejected the Wizard and chose to stay with the Future Foundation.) Bentley deduces that the Wizard is using mind control on Medusa, making her act like she’s Bentley’s mother. She snaps out of it for a moment, only for him to blast her with it again. Medusa tells Bentley that the Wizard has brought the Future Foundation to the Negative Zone, where he plans to kill them all.

Inside the new Baxter Building, Ant-Man comes to a similar conclusion, telling the Foundation kids to prepare for battle. Ant-Man keeps flashing back to his dead daughter Cassie (don’t worry, she eventually comes back), and he admits how frightened he is for the kids. This moment is interrupted by the Wizard’s group attacking. Everyone fights, and this time it’s Dragon Man who deduces that Medusa is being mind-controlled.

There’s a curious bit where the Wizard says his image of family being “heteronormative cisgendered classification” is superior to the Foundation’s found family. Ant-Man punches him in the face, saying “Your image is boring, creep.” Medusa, meanwhile, gets all tangled up with a bunch of the kids. She gets her own mind back for a sec, pleading with Ant-Man to help her. Darla punches Blastaar with a classic “It’s clobberin’ time,” but he responds by hitting her so hard that her Thing suit breaks apart.

Before Blastaar can smash the now-helpless Darla, she gives him a big speech about her success as a pop star, concluding with how she considers Bentley to be her friend. Then Bentley arrives in the building, having constructed some sort of high-tech vest that he puts on Blastaar. The vest teleports Blastaar into space, where he materializes next to a huge space station. (Reminder that in the Fantastic Four storyline running parallel to FF, we just saw Blastaar travel from the end of time back to the Big Bang, so pieces are starting to come together and connect the two series.)

With the villains defeated, the team brings the Wizard to Attilan to face judgment from the Inhuman royal family. Medusa admits the Wizard got into her head by exploiting a “psychic weakness,” that made her act motherly. Black Bolt renders his judgment, which Medusa interprets as “Black Bolt would have words with you.” The Baxter Building returns to New York via unseen Inhuman technology. (Although Lockjaw the teleporting dog cab be seen in the background, so maybe he teleported the entire building across dimensions?) Everyone survived, and Darla asks if that means it’s a happy ending. Ant-Man says, “That’ll do.”

Then we pick up on the storyline started a few issues back where Ant-Man wanted this new team to take out Dr. Doom once and for all, only for Alex Power to leave the Foundation and travel to Latveria, where he requested an audience with Doom. All we see in this ending follow up is that Doom does indeed meet with Alex inside Castle Doom, where he asks Alex to tell him everything about Ant-Man and the foundation’s plan to end him.

To be continued!

Fantastic fifth wheel: Where is She-Hulk during the fight? When we last saw her in the previous issue, she and Ahura were in Attilan. Look in the background and you see she arrives at the same time Lockjaw does. Further, she’s the one who damages the Wizard’s helmet to free Medusa, not Ant-Man punches.

We get more backstory about Darla Deering. She says she had her first hit single at age 14 (!) and has been winning Grammys and MTV Music Video Awards every year since then. She also has thousands of followers on the Marvel Universe’s social media, Yamblr, Facespace, and NewToob.

Foundational: Wakandan kid genius Onome asks why the kids are fighting and not hiding. This is what prompts Ant-Man to reveal he’s frightened for them, but he tells them they can’t save the world by living safer.

I had thought that Leech’s powers only worked on mutants, yet in this issue a lot is made of him grabbling Medusa and refusing to let go. The Marvel Wiki states his powers affect anything considered supernatural, and not just mutants.

Trivia time: At first, Medusa easily overpowers the Foundation kids, but then they overwhelm her (perhaps with Leech’s help, noted above). Just how strong is Medusa? This time I turned to our old friend The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Deluxe Edition, which says that a fist-sized lock of her hair can lift or press 750 pounds, while her entire head of hair can lift or press 1.6 tons when used all at once. The Handbook also suggests the possibility that Medusa can control other hair and hair-like textiles that are not her own, but this has never been proven.

The Marvel Wiki counts this as an official appearance of the Frightful Four, with Medusa being an “enslaved” member, and Bentley-23 being a “forced” member. Depite the Wizard’s assertation of “Long live the Frightful Four,” I don’t know if I buy that.

The wiki has no entry on the teleporting vest that Bentley invents on the spot, only calling it “a harness.” I wonder if it’s a reference to the M-Vest from DC Comics’ Shade the Changing Man.

Fantastic or frightful? Writer Matt Fraction seems to want this run of issues to be action-heavy, because these are a lot of big superhero battles. This one is fun because we get to see the entire Future Foundation ensemble acting as a team during the brawl.

Next: Crunch time.

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Want more? Check out my novel MOM, I’M BULLETPROOF. It’s a comedic/romantic/dramatic superhero epic! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08XPXBK14.

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Forgotten TV shows I still like – Covington Cross 1992

Posted on September 22, 2025 by Mac McEntire

Forgotten TV shows I still like. In 1991, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves was a mega-blockbuster, and the entertainment world went a little Robin Hood crazy for a bit. There was the grim and serious Robin Hood TV series starring Richard Masur, the Young Robin Hood cartoon series, a Mel Brooks spoof, and even a Robin Hood-themed episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. And in 1992, ABC aired a medieval adventure in the Kevin Costner style, Covington Cross.

Sometime in 14th Century England, Sir Thomas Grey is a knight in service to the king, overseeing the castle of Covington Cross and its surrounding land. Joining him are his two rambunctious sons, Richard, Cedric, and Armus, and his feisty daughter Eleanor. Various outside forces threaten the peaceful castle, chief among them being Baron Mullens, who’s always scheming to claim Sir Grey’s land for his own.

Wait a sec…  a father and his sons protecting their huge homestead from criminals and rival landowners? This show isn’t Robin Hood, it’s Bonanza! Covington Cross is the Ponderosa, Sir Grey is Lorne Green, and the three sons are, um, the three sons. Just exchange the swords for six-shooters and the English accents for a little cowboy twang, and you’re pretty much there.

What’s to like about Covington Cross? While Bonanza often used its Western setting to explore important social issues and whatnot, the producers of Covington Cross were more interested in the adventure of it all. Expect plenty of swordfights, chases on horseback, and dudes getting shot with arrows. All this action isn’t as flashy or explosive as the Costner movie, but it’s pretty impressive for weekly TV.

Actor Nigel Terry had already played King Arthur in the 1981 Excalibur movie, so he’s able to bring kingly authority to the role of Sir Grey. Youngest brother Cedric is played by Glenn Quinn of Angel, and he’s often put in the romantic role, wooing the young ladies and idealizing chivalry and knighthood. Ione Skye of Say Anything plays daughter Eleanor, and she too is more interested in swordfights than in sewing lace doilies.

Thirteen episodes of Covington Cross were produced, but only seven aired before ABC pulled the plug. Why? The show was incredibly expensive. An American TV show filmed entirely on location in England with all English cast made this a lot more costly than usual. It’s one of those cases where it had to debut as the number one show in the ratings to justify the cost. When that didn’t happen, it had to go. A year after Prince of Thieves, I wonder if audiences were already all Robin Hooded out.

Other observations:

  • The pilot had another brother, William, who was written out between episodes one and two. He was replaced by Armus, who gets all of episode two devoted to his intro.
  • Is it just me, or does the theme song sound way too much like John Williams’ Superman theme?
  • The real-life Covington Cross was Arlington Castle in Kent, England. It’s been a filming location for a number of English TV shows and movies.

There we have it. Covington Cross might Robin Hood lite (or Bonanza lite, even), but it’s enjoyable – a fun, zippy series of adventure tales. If ABC/Disney were to get this out of the vault and put it on Disney Plus, I bet viewers would get a kick out of it.

All thirteen episodes of Covington Cross are currently on YouTube.

Next: Not all black and white.

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Want more? Check out my novel MOM, I’M BULLETPROOF. It’s a comedic/romantic/dramatic superhero epic! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08XPXBK14.

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Fantastic Friday: Big bang weary

Posted on September 19, 2025 by Mac McEntire

Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. Our heroes continue to time travel in vol. 4 issue #6 legacy #617, so why not go all the way back in time?

The Fantastic Four, along with Franklin and Valeria, are off on a year-long expedition through time and space. This is secretly Reed’s way of looking for a cure for the life-threatening affliction he’s come down with. Also, all this time, Ben had been acting more and more irritable.

We begin at “the end of all things” where an alien jury is sentencing a prisoner back in time to the big bang. His sentence is that he will witness the creation of the universe, and then be the first living thing to die. On board the FF’s ship, the two kids are giving a presentation about the big bang and the constantly expanding nature of the universe. Reed approves of their homework and adds, “We’ll be there by lunchtime to see it happen.”

In his room, Ben is swallowing aspirin by the bottleful. He joins his teammates on the bridge, admitting that he has a huge headache. The ship arrives just in time for the big bang, only to find the prisoner there, strapped to a floating chunk of rock. Valeria deduces the creature came from another time as well, and Reed wants to investigate, despite the potential danger. So Ben dons a high-tech spacesuit and heads out to the rock. He frees the creature and brings it back to the rock.

Aboard the ship, the creature’s metal suit bursts open, and we see the prisoner is the FF’s old foe, Blastaar the Living Bomb-burst! (Who is Blastaar again? Originally from the Negative Zone, he was a power mad dictator. After being separated from his people, he continued to be power-hungry and enraged. Also readers of the FF series running parallel to this one just saw Blastaar in the present, so something’s up.) Ben and Blastaar fight, and starts glowing with orange energy. Blastaar punches Ben out of the ship, causing a hull breach.

Next Reed and Sue fight Blastaar, trying to keep him from destroying the ship as they battle. Reed is injured during the fight. Johnny joins in, only for Blastaar to overpower him. Reed notices that cooling rods were part of Blastaar’s prison garb, and he fears that Blastaar was sentenced to die in the past because he’s overpowered and is about to blow up anyway.

The family huddles in the cockpit while Blastaar goes nuts throughout the rest of the ship. Franklin suggests traveling to the end of time from the beginning of this issue (confused yet?). Reed says the ship is too damaged, but Franklin wonders if he can do it with his reality-bending powers. Franklin concentrates, and the ship disappears, leaving Blastaar behind. He sees the beginning of the universe, and his own end.

Unstable molecule: Getting burned by Blastaar would seem to exacerbate Reed’s sickness.

Fade out: With Ben out with his headache, Sue is the one piloting the ship. She makes a big deal of how complicated it is to hit just the right coordinates for the beginning of time.

Clobberin’ time: Not only does Ben glow orange during the fight, but his eyes are shows glowing when he’s alone in his room.


Flame on: Johnny and Blastaar fight while surrounded by one of Sue’s force fields, where  they can both go nuts with fire and not burn the whole ship down.

Fantastic fifth wheel: Two H.E.R.B.I.E. robots join the fight, only for Blastaar to make short work of them. Sue doesn’t like that they are weapons, but Reed insists they were built only for construction and demolition. Freakin’ H.E.R.B.I.E. the robot.

Four and a half: I guess now we’re adding time travel to the increasingly lengthy list of Franklin’s mutant powers. What I find more interesting is his growing more and more in control of his powers.

Our gal Val: Valeria is basically the ship’s science officer in this issue, running scans on Blastaar before he wakes. Maybe Reed is having her do this as more of her homework.

Trivia time: The big bang was a busier time than this issue suggests. This was where Galactus, the Phoenix Force, and Knull (a.k.a. god of the symbiotes) all came from. And just this year in Marvel Comics, Dr. Doom, Rocket Racoon, and the FF’s own H.E.R.B.I.E. all visited the big bang. (Freakin’ H.E.R.B.I.E. again!) I can think of no explanation as to why everybody’s not running into each at this moment, except that empty space is big, so maybe they’re all spaced out around the explosion.

Fantastic or frightful? It’s another “all they do is fight” issue in the classic Marvel style. It sets up a fun cliffhanger. But more importantly, it hints as to how the two Fantastic Four and FF series are going to tie together. I guess that’s all it has to be.

Next: Crunch time.

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Want more? Check out my novel MOM, I’M BULLETPROOF. It’s a comedic/romantic/dramatic superhero epic! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08XPXBK14.

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Forgotten TV shows I still like – Double Rush 1995

Posted on September 15, 2025 by Mac McEntire

Forgotten TV shows I still like. Have you ever watched Cheers and thought, “What if they all had bicycles?” The creators of Double Rush must’ve had the same thought.

Double Rush ran for 12 episodes with a 13th unaired one in early 1995. It takes place inside a New York City bicycle messenger service named, of course, Double Rush. Robert Pastorelli of Murphy Brown and Dances With Wolves (“There ain’t nobody here, lieutenant!”) stars as Johnny Verona, a former ‘60s rock guitarist and idealist, who now runs the bike service in place of realizing his rockstar dreams. Corinne Bohrer of E/R and Veronica Mars plays Zoe, a would-be businesswoman who reluctantly takes a messenger job with Johnny after failing to land the career of her dreams.

A bunch of well-known actors and a few familiar faces round out the rest of the ensemble. Adam Goldberg plays Leo, a burned-out and world-weary Gen X-er whose cynicism butts up against the idealism Johnny had in his youth. DL Hughley plays Marlon, who has a wife and kids at home he’s trying to support. David Arquette is Hunter, an adrenaline junkie who always takes wild, dangerous risks while biking around the city streets. Character actor Sam Lloyd plays Barkley, the spaced-out dispatcher, who always has some oddball bit of philosophy to spout. Finally, there’s the character known only as the Kid, played by Phil Leeds, who is an old man hip to modern culture.

There’s a long list of failed sitcoms out there, but Double Rush did the sitcom right. A lot of the jokes are good ones, and the fast paced, rat-a-tat dialogue means that if one gag didn’t work for you, another one is only seconds away. A typical trick is to introduce an element into the bike shop, such as a woman crying over a breakup or a bunch of mobsters, and then the writers go down list to come up with jokes for each character to make. These scenes keep the whole ensemble involved, and gives each actor a moment to shine.

But it’s the character work that makes Double Rush shine. We’ll never know if Johnny and Zoe would have developed a Sam-and-Diane thing, but that’s the most likely scenario. The show does get to follow up on Johnny and Leo, though. Several episodes establish a strained relationship between Leo and his unseen dad, putting Johnny in the reluctant role of father figure to Leo. If there’s any sort of main character arc in this first season of Double Rush, it’d be this.

But the show has other stuff on its mind as well. Everyone is broke, and a lot of time is spent on all the characters’ financial woes. We learn that Johnny could have signed a recording contract back to make it big back in the day, but he refused because he couldn’t leave behind his bandmates. Similarly, Johnny is often faced with selling out to a rival, more successful messenger service, but won’t do so because that would compromise his integrity. So Johnny feels a need to take care of his people, even when they drive him up the wall. Pretty heady stuff for a comedy, but Double Rush keeps these themes front and center while remaining light and fun.

Why didn’t Double Rush take off? It faced the bane of many a failed TV show – scheduling. It first aired on Friday nights, when its Gen X audience was mostly out and about. Part of the way through its run, it was moved to Tuesday against ratings juggernaut Roseanne, and that was all she wrote. Double Rush was co-created by Diane English, creator of the mega-successful Murphy Brown. It had the goods to be a hit, but… alas.

Other observations:

  • Part of the Double Rush set included a ramp where extras and even the main cast would ride bikes onto and off of the stage. Cyclists often skidded to a halt mere inches away from their fellow actors. I hope they got some stunt training before filming.
  • The show’s flashy opening credits sequence was directed by music video director turned feature filmmaker Spike Jonze (who took his name from the great old-time radio comedian Spike Jones, but that’s a blog post for another time).
  • Several times throughout the series, we go outside for some location shooting. We get to see the cyclists zipping through the streets of New York (or whatever New York-like streets they had wherever this was filmed). This must have been expensive, but it was worth it. The location shoots gave the show a bigger size and scope than other sitcoms.

I could only find four episodes of Double Rush online. Who knows, if the folks at Paramount Plus click the button to put this on streaming, they might have a surprise hit on their hands.

Next: “Why a spoon, cousin?”

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Want more? Check out my novel MOM, I’M BULLETPROOF. It’s a comedic/romantic/dramatic superhero epic! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08XPXBK14.

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Fantastic Friday: Party down at the internet café

Posted on September 12, 2025 by Mac McEntire

Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. Let’s catch up with the replacement team and the Future Foundation in FF #6. And let’s do it at the local internet café!

The Fantastic Four’s year-long expedition through time and space was supposed to be only four minutes back on Earth in the present, but they never returned. A replacement Fantastic Four – Ant-Man, Medusa, She-Hulk, and newcomer Darla Deering – have taken over teaching the genius kids of the Future Foundation as well as protecting the Earth. The previous issue had Medusa sneaking would-be supervillain Bentley-23 away with villains the Wizard and Blastaar the Living Bomb-burst.

This issue begins with Dragon Man asking around the new Baxter Building where Bentley has gone. This includes a fun full-page cross-section of the HQ in the old Jack Kirby style. Scott Lang, the current Ant-Man, wakes from a dream of his dead daughter Cassie (don’t worry, she eventually comes back), and then obsesses over photos of her on his phone. During breakfast, the whole FF sees pics of Darla in the newspaper, of her trying on various looks for her Thing suit from the previous issue. Turns out someone hacked her phone and stole her pics. Cut to an internet café (!) where a daily bugle reporter is buying the photos from the Yancy Street Gang, who want to make Darla’s life awful for her taking the place of the Thing.

And then this happens. There’s no other way to say it, so here goes: the Moloid Tong, wearing a pink dress, comes out as a trans female. But the comic doesn’t use those words. The actual text is, “I have a girl inside of me. I tried to be a boy like you, but there is no boy here. And I do not with to be what I am not any longer.” The other Moloids are happy to accept Tong as their sister.

What to make of this? On one hand, representation is good. On the other hand, having a trans character also be an alien creature is perhaps a mixed message. The real message, I suppose, is how everyone else loves and accepts Tong for who she authentically is. As I recall, a criticism many had at the time was that this had no relevance to the ongoing plot. But isn’t that the way life works? A person’s coming out should be an ordinary thing, and not a shocking plot twist, right? Was anyone buying this comic thinking, “I wonder what Tong is up to this month?” I’m not an expert on these things in the least, but it seems to be that this was tastefully done.

Moving on, the replacement four have a meeting. She-Hulk will take Medusa’s son Ahura back to the Inhuman city of Attilan to search for Medusa and Bentley, while Ant-Man and Darla will work on securing Darla from other cyberattacks. Except that popstar Darla has an engagement at Carnegie Hall that day. (If you’re playing Carnegie Hall, wouldn’t the people you live with know that already?) Darla sees Tong in a dress and says, “Good for her.”

At Carnegie, Darla is doing an acoustic show, without any of the backup dancers or outrageous costumes. But then we see that a bunch of the Yancy Street Gang are in the audience wearing Thing masks. They throw food at her and drive her off the stage. Darla runs to Scott for help, but he’s disappeared.

In Attilan, which is floating over in the sky over NYC, She-Hulk asks the Inhuman royal family where Medusa has gone, only to get the silent treatment. Ahura uses his psychic powers to communicate with Black Bolt. “He said a lot,” Ahura says, adding that Black Bolt gave giant teleporting dog Lockjaw permission to join them in the search for Medusa.

Darla and Scott reunite at the internet café from earlier, where they are confronted by the Yancy Street Gang. Scott knows each of their names, saying he beat them at their own game. During the Carnegie show, he shrunk down to ant size and followed the gang home, learning all their secrets. What’s more he sent out all their personal info onto the internet, including passwords and phone numbers, but also embarrassing photos and posts. The gang again insists that Darla is not the Thing. She agrees with them, saying she isn’t there to replace anyone. Scott tells the gang to go ahead with their pranks because Darla needs to toughen up, but also warns them that Darla will shock the world once she’s in fighting shape.

Back at HQ, Dragon Man discovers that the H.E.R.B.I.E. bots tasked with security had been dismantled, with traces of Medusa’s hair left behind. Scott starts to give everyone a pep talk about finding Medusa and Ahura when there’s a big pop, and the entire building is transported to another world. Where are they? The caption reads, “To be continued… in the Negative Zone!”

Fantastic fifth wheel: Remember that in addition to his shrinking tech, Scott Lang is an electronics whiz, so it’s a natural that he hacked the Yancy Streeters. He reminds them (and us) that just like Darla’s not the Thing, he’s not Reed Richards.

I googled it, and the song She-Hulk is listening to while Dragon Man searches the building is “Lose Yourself” by Eminem.

The strands of Medusa’s hair left behind still move by themselves. No word on whether she can control them once separated.

Darla is again shown leading the Foundation kids in some yoga. I guess that her official “teacher” role.

There’s several references to the H.E.R.B.I.E. bots being built from the remains of old Doombots. Some of them even wear replicas of Dr. Doom’s cape and hood, strangely. This issue also introduces Dr. H.E.R.B.I.E.s inside the Baxter Building’s medical bay. Freakin’ H.E.R.B.I.E. the robot.

Crystal is seen standing alongside the Inhuman royal family, but remains as silent as the rest of them.

Foundational: Because Ahura appears so rarely in Marvel Comics, his powers tend to get tweaked for each appearance. In this issue we see his telepathy, but his other powers have included creating clones of himself that he controls psychically, his father’s own sonic scream, optic blasts, flight, mind control, and even matter manipulation.

Trivia time: Googling “New York City internet café” takes you to all kinds of weird places. These places exist, but they’re really more coffee shops that have wi-fi, rather than “come here and surf the web in public” that we imagine. First there was the IDT Megabyte Café in New York, which got a lot of hype but only ran from 1996 to 1998. Then there was Easyinternetcafé (one word) a chain of cafés from England that opened a huge one in Times Square in 2000, with 800 PCs for customers to play with, not to mention sushi on the menu. I can’t find out when it closed, but a 2009 article in Newsweek is all about how it is failing. Considering that the characters in this 2013 issue of FF use smartphones to do their hacking, I’m guessing the café seen here is wholly fictional.  

This was in Times Square.

Fantastic or frightful? The Scott/Darla story seemed a rehash of their concert adventure a few issues earlier. The search for Medusa should have been the push for this issue, but I guess it didn’t have the opportunity for as many hijinks. Each issue of this run of FF is one part of a bigger whole, though, so I accept it in that context.

Next: Go into the light.

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Want more? Check out my novel MOM, I’M BULLETPROOF. It’s a comedic/romantic/dramatic superhero epic! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08XPXBK14.

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Forgotten TV shows I still like – Alive From Off Center 1985-1992

Posted on September 1, 2025 by Mac McEntire

Forgotten TV shows I still like. For this series, I’m trying to skip over things with cult followings in favor of true obscurities. With that in mind, here’s Alive From Off Center.

I think we can agree that PBS programming is usually pretty boring. But… used to be that if you turned it on in the middle of the night, you could find all kinds of oddities. These included British TV like Dr. Who and Fawlty Towers, old silent horror films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and the Lon Cheney Phantom of Opera. And that’s where Alive From Off Center would often show up out of nowhere.

What is this show? The premise seems to be, “Let’s give an artist access to TV equipment and let them do whatever they want.” These artists aren’t just filmmakers, but also dancers, actors, animators, and even the likes of mimes and circus types. I guess you could call it performance art for the then-new digital age.

Information on the origins and history of this show is hard to come by. This ran from 1985 (or ’86 according to some sources) and ran until 1992, when it was renamed Alive TV, finally ending in 1996. That’s a heck of a long run for something that no one ever talks about anymore. The first season was hosted by radio journalist Susan Stamberg, who offered context on the various scenes/skits. Avant-garde artist Laurie Anderson took over as host for the second season, and her intros were more just as arty and out-there as the rest of the show. The rest of the series had no regular host, throwing viewers straight into the mix.

Alive From Off Center defies description. Segments include musical performances, dance performances, one-act plays, comedy skits, low-budget animation, short films from overseas – basically anything the artists of the week wanted to come up with. A big part of enjoying the show is never knowing what on Earth you would see next.

Other observations:

  • Famous to semi-famous performers on the show include Spaulding Grey, Bill Irwin, and William Wegman (a.k.a. that guy who uses his dogs in all his art).
  • Were there recurring segments? Kind of. Anderson’s bizarre host segments spun out of her short film What Do You Mean We?
  • A dance segment called Dancers in Exile was directed by famous filmmaker Jonathan Demme.

Alive From Off Center is difficult to find online, with only a scattering of episodes posted by various people, so we can’t track how the show developed over time. But, in a way, this simulates what it was like to happen upon it while channel surfing after midnight and being “What the heck is this?” Off center, indeed.

Next: Who likes bikes?

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Want more? Check out my novel MOM, I’M BULLETPROOF. It’s a comedic/romantic/dramatic superhero epic! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08XPXBK14.

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Forgotten TV shows I still like – Key West 1993

Posted on August 25, 2025 by Mac McEntire

The whirlwind success of Twin Peaks in 1990 begat Northern Exposure, about a quirky small town, this time without the murder and darkness. That series begat Key West, with the premise being, “Quirky small town, but Florida this time.”

Seamus O’Neil (Fisher Stevens) is a lowly factory worker in New Jersey who longs to be a writer like his hero, Hemingway. When he wins millions in the lottery, he packs up his things and moves to Hemingway’s old stomping grounds in Key West, Florida. In no time, he ingratiates himself to the locals. There’s wisecracking bartender Gumbo (Leland Cooke), Jamaican spiritualist Jojo (Terrence “T.C.” Carson), wise-beyond-her-years sex worker Savannah (Jennifer Tilly), bizarre sheriff Jeremiah (Brian Thompson), conservative mayor Caldwell (Denise Crosby), and many, many others.  

It’s not long before the whole lottery thing doesn’t work out, and Seamus ends up needing a job. He gets work at the local newspaper, led by blind editor “King” Cole (Ivory Ocean), and his weekly column about life in town becomes the voiceover narration that guides us through each episode. This also gives him an excuse to be in the center of whatever’s happening in town.

There we have it. A fun premise, a novel setting, and a huge cast of kooky characters. But… the show has its flaws. The tone is, let’s say, inconsistent. Key West is at its best when relying on the Northern Exposure template. The quirkiness and occasional supernatural occurrences are there to reflect what the characters are dealing with. But then it becomes a heady drama at times, with a hurricane blowing through town, a crime episode about a Cuban gangster, and multiple episodes about the mayor’s various insecurities. These storylines lack the fun, semi-magical feeling that captures your attention when you first discover the show.

If the show is so flawed, why watch? The best thing about Key West is just the overall vibes. There’s an alligator with a big pink bow living in the bar. A mysterious unknown man plays bagpipes while on the beach overlooking the ocean. Every episode treats us to new little details about the characters, and the dialogue is often sharp and witty.

There’s a female marine biologist character introduced early on as a love interest for Seamus, but she’s not on the show much after that. We get a lot more interaction between Seamus and Savannah instead, with Fisher Stevens and Jennifer Tilly having great chemistry. Would they have become the show’s big romance had it continued? That’s my guess, but who can say?

Other observations:

  • Most of the online trivia about the show has to do with cats in the background of various shots. Allegedly, Hemingway kept several cats on his property, and the legend goes that all the cats in the town of Key West are descendants of Hemingway’s cats. (Big money pitch: An animated movie about Hemingway’s cats.)
  • David Beaird, the creator and executive producer of Key West, also directed six feature films in his career. Each one of those films has one or more Key West cast members.
  • Scheduling no doubt played a role in the show’s demise. The first half of the series ran from January to March 1993. Then it went on hiatus, not airing the rest of the series until June 1993. And then, episodes were pre-empted twice for other programming.

If you’re curious about Key West, I suggest making it a bit of a miniseries. Start with the pilot followed by “The Second Day in Heaven,” dealing with Seamus’ arrival in town and his new role at the newspaper. Then act three is “We the People,” in which the entire ensemble unites to take a stand against the government. That episode gives the whole cast something to do, and it sums up the show nicely.

Next: Let’s get artsy.

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Want more? Check out my novel MOM, I’M BULLETPROOF. It’s a comedic/romantic/dramatic superhero epic! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08XPXBK14.

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Fantastic Friday: Age of Oops-tron

Posted on August 22, 2025 by Mac McEntire

Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. After issue #5 comes issue #6, right? Not so with Marvel. Our regularly scheduled ongoing story arc is interrupted by a big crossover, so here’s issue #5.AU. That stands for Age of Ultron, of course.

Do I really have to read the entire crossover to get this issue? I’m going to try to wing it. The opening text page tells us that Hank Pym created Ultron, but Ultron went out of control and hates humanity. We begin with the FF still on their year-long expedition of time and space. Their ship is currently in deep space, 634 years in the past. Franklin is woken up from sleep by Valeria, who plays a message for them left by the Reed, Sue, Ben, and Johnny. Reed says, “If you’re seeing this message, something has gone catastrophically wrong.”

We catch up to the FF on a shuttle, where Reed explains that Ultron is attacking the Earth, the entire planet at once. They make contact with Black Panther who describes the conflict as “the end of the world” and asks for anyone who is able to come to Earth’s aid. They travel back to the present, only to find New York in ruins. Medusa is lying unconscious nearby, and the FF sets out in search of their children. (But… we just saw the kids back on the ship, right? Must be a time travel thing.) Reed fears the kids didn’t get to safety in time, and then the team is attacked by a flying squad of Ultron robots.

On the ship, Johnny’s portion of the message is his will and testament, leaving everything to Franklin and Valeria. He reconciles how he just recently came back from the dead (He wasn’t actually dead, but whatever), and he promises, “Death isn’t the end of anything.” Valeria hears this and concludes, “We’re in real trouble.”

On Earth, Johnny fights the Ultrons while Ben smashes through the rubble in search of an exit. Johnny vanishes and maybe dies in a big explosion. On the ship, Ben’s portion of the message is his confession. He admits he fears that Dr. Doom was all his fault, because he treated Doom like a jerk when they were back in college. He then reveals that he messed with Doom’s experiment, the one that failed and scarred Doom’s face. “I ain’t never told no one that before,” he says. Franklin and Val are shocked, and they hug each other.

Back on Earth, the FF have been hiding for seventeen hours. Ben thinks he sees Dr. Doom and he attacks. Turns out this is another Ultron ‘bot wearing Doom’s cloak and mask. He says Dr. Doom fell, adding, “They all fell.” Ben fights the Ultrons, only for more and more of them to swarm onto him, overwhelming him.

In the ship, we get Reed’s part of the message. Reed says he doesn’t have the words for the kids, so he writes his thoughts down on paper. He writes about not knowing how to say goodbye to his children, and that, as a man of science, he does not believe in Heaven or Hell. He writes, “What we do it all that matters.” On Earth, Reed and Sue flee from the Ultrons. He wraps a bunch of them up in his stretchy body. The robots enact their self-destruct functions, and Reed goes up in another huge explosion.

Time passes, and Sue regains consciousness as She-Hulk finds her and pulls her from the rubble. She tells Sue, “We lost everything.” On the ship, there’s no message from Sue. Franklin remembers her telling him, “Everything’s going to be okay,” before he went to sleep the night before. Valeria asks if he believes her, and Franklin doesn’t answer.

To be continued… in the crossover.

All right, fine. I’ll read all ten issues of freakin’ Age of Ultron. What’s it about? The whole thing takes place in the ruins of the Earth following Ultron’s attack. It’s post-apocalypse sci-fi where various Marvel heroes are the only survivors. The heroes assemble over time, with Sue joining them in issue #3. Upon fleeing to the Savage Land for safety, the heroes learn the original Ultron isn’t on Earth, but he is leading the invasion from some point in the future. Everybody finds Nick Fury hiding in a high-tech bunker, and they debate traveling into Ultron’s future versus going back in time to stop Hank Pym from creating Ultron in the first place. Fury leads a team into the future, but Sue and Wolverine go rogue, however, going to the past to take out Pym. Sue hesitates, but she finally steps aside and allows Wolverine to kill Pym.

Sue and Wolverine return to the present to find New York is restored, except this time the world is ruled by Tony Stark and his army of Iron Men. Sue and Wolvie are attacked and abducted by an alternate universe version of the Defenders. Sue uses her invisibility to try to escape, only for the witch Morgana Le Fey to invade New York with an army of super-monsters. (She’s the main supervillain in this reality, apparently.)

Then the story abruptly goes back to the scene where Wolverine killed Pym, only for another Wolverine to show up and stop him. This one says he’s also from Fury’s bunker in the Ultron future. This new Wolverine has a plan where Pym creates Ultron like he always did, restoring history as it was, except for one failsafe to stop Ultron in this specific instance and none of the other times he attacked. Sue joins them and adds that Hank must also wipe his memory of this failsafe.

Then another flashback to Pym creating Ultron, except this time he finds a message from himself in the future. It describes the Avengers battling the Intelligencia, resulting in signal being sent to restore Ultron. Then the kill switch from the two Wolverines timeline is activated, and Ultron freaks out, realizing that something in his code has changed. Ultron fights the Avengers while also trying to resist the change. But Pym’s failsafe works, and Ultron breaks apart. Wolverine and Sue return to New York where it seems to be back to normal. But then there’s several pages of what looks like various timelines converging and/or falling apart. Pym, Tony Stark, and Beast have a meeting where they say “multiversal chaos” now threatens the Earth. We end with two big (well, big-ish) changes to the Marvel Universe. First, Miles Morales transports permanently from the Ultimate Universe to the MU proper. Second, Angela from Spawn comics arrives in the MU.

Unstable molecule: Reed’s goodbye to the kids is probably the best scene in all these comics. But how can Reed say he doesn’t believe in Heaven or Hell when he’s personally visited both? (Hell during the John Byrne years, and Heaven during the Waid/Weiringo years.) He probably sees those as alternate universes and not the afterlife.

Fade out: Nick Fury has copies of all the heroes’ weapons and armor in his bunker, just in case. But because Sue has no specific weapons, all she gets is a big gun.

Clobberin’ time: Ben’s revelation about sabotaging Doom’s machine back in college should be a bigger deal than it is. It’s definitely something to look out for in future issues.

Flame on: Johnny makes a big deal about how he recently came back from the dead. But, from his perspective, he wasn’t dead. He was off in the Negative Zone having all kinds of adventures. I suppose he’s talking about death from his family’s perspective.

Four and a half/Our gal Val: Age of Ultron issue #10 has one line where Wolverine tells Sue it’s time for her to go back home to her kids. Other than that, Franklin and Valeria’s storyline has no conclusion. But then, the Marvel Wiki has to go and insist that all of Age of Ultron is an alternate timeline/timelines, and the only the last few scenes take place in the actual Marvel Universe. Geez.

Fantastic fifth wheel: She-Hulk has a buzzcut in the Ultron timeline, suggesting her hair was burned off in battle somehow. She and Luke Cage were instrumental in the mission where the heroes learned Ultron was coordinating the invasion from the future. Medusa is confirmed dead in the Ultron timeline.

Black Panther is seen only at the start of the crossover, sending the distress signal. Storm randomly appears alongside the heroes late in the story. You probably have to read their tie-in issues to get those full stories.

Foundational: There’s reference to Pym studying Dragon Man prior to creating Ultron. Beyond that, the Future Foundation and backup FF get no mention in Age of Ultron.

Trivia time: Angela was originally a character from Todd McFarlane’s Spawn, an angel sent to Earth to hunt Al Simmons, a.k.a. Spawn. She went to have all kinds of adventures of her own. A writer who will not be named sued McFarlane for ownership of the character, only to immediately then sell the character to Marvel just to rub McFarlane’s face in the dirt. (Looking back at stuff like this, we can see that unnamed writer was never a good person, was he?) Since then, Angela has been a semi-regular in Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy.

Fantastic or frightful? We’re all interested in multiverse stories, because it’s fun to explore the “what if” of it all. But when everything is all alternate timelines, it loses any sense of drama. Someone dies? Just get another one of them from another universe. What’s more, Age of Ultron doesn’t have a main character. It starts with Hawkeye, then goes back and forth between Captain America and Nicky Fury, then focuses on Sue and Wolverine, and ends with Hank Pym. Just imagine if Hawkeye had filled Wolverine’s role throughout. It’d be more consistent, and we’d get a big crossover event with ol’ Clint as the focus. Anyway, it’s ten issues and tons of tie-ins for something that didn’t matter a whole lot.

Next: Day in the life.

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Want more? Check out my novel MOM, I’M BULLETPROOF. It’s a comedic/romantic/dramatic superhero epic! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08XPXBK14.

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Fantastic Friday: Fun with Galactus

Posted on August 8, 2025 by Mac McEntire

Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. Except that I’m dealing with a lot of crap this week, so here’s Galactus.

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Want more? Check out my novel MOM, I’M BULLETPROOF. It’s a comedic/romantic/dramatic superhero epic! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08XPXBK14.

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Fantastic Friday: Hairy situation

Posted on August 1, 2025 by Mac McEntire

Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. Time for more science-kid hijinks in FF vol. 2 #5, with some mystery along the way.

Recap: The Fantastic Four have left for an expedition through time and space that’s meant to last only four seconds back home. But they never returned. Now, a replacement Fantastic Four – Ant-Man, Medusa, She-Hulk, and newcomer Darla Deering – are left in charge. Then a future version of Johnny, now known as “John Storm” appeared, saying Dr. Doom will kill the Fantastic Four in the future. While Ant-Man plots to take down Doom before this can happen, Medusa and Bentley-23, the Foundation’s would-be supervillain in training, have their own plot in the works.

This issue begins with Medusa introducing her son Ahura to the Future Foundation kids. She shows them a flower that’s been exposed to the Inhumans’ terrigen mists, which gives the Inhumans their powers, and then she begins a history lesson. Nearby, Ant-Man is fretting over Alex Power, who ran off after disagreeing with the plan to confront Dr. Doom. He breaks down in front of Darla, insisting it’s his responsibility to keep everyone together. Darla says not to worry about Alex, and instead focus on John Storm, who has also wandered off.

John Storm wanders into some sort of art gallery/nightclub place, looking for a place to sleep for the night. When two locals try to get him to leave, he flames on, singing one man’s beard. He flies off, as a photographer gets a pic of him. Back at HQ, Medusa shows off teleporting dog Lockjaw to the kids. Crystal is there with her daughter Luna, having brought Ahern to the building. Luna has a sort of second sight power, and she sees purple energy swirling around Medusa. She says Medusa looks “un-good.” Medusa chides Luna, saying she shouldn’t use her powers on the queen of Attilan.

Out in New York, Johnny is flying about in madness, saying he’ll burn the whole city to the ground. Ant-Man gets the team together to stop him, with Medusa reminding everyone that John is a friend and must be treated with compassion. Before leaving, Ant-Man asks the Foundation kids for ideas on how to stop John safely. The team finds John out in the city, and a brief fight breaks out. Just as Ant-Man is about to subdue him, the Foundation’s two Atlantean kids, Vil and Wu, summon a huge sea monster to splash water down onto the whole city. This douses John’s flame and knocks him out. The photographer is back, and he takes a humiliating pic of the team all wet.

Later, the team is visited by Ul-Waa of the Uhari. Remember that the Uhari are the long-lost offshoots of Atlantis recently discovered. Ul-Waa is the interim regent of the Uhari in Sue’s absence and uncle to Vil and Wu. He says he won’t allow the children to come to harm, even though they saved the city. John wakes up in the building’s infirmary, saying “End Doom.”

Then we learn where Alex Power ran off to. He’s in… Latveria?!? He arrives at Castle Doom, saying he’s written ahead, and that he’s there to talk about Ant-Man and the new FF. That night, back at the new Baxter Building, Bentley-23 has a dream (or is it?) where he sees Medusa, Blastaar the Living Bomb-burst, and the Wizard. (Remember that Bentley is a clone of the Wizard.) The Wizard calls Medusa “wife,” and he says to Bentley, “Call me dad.”

To be continued!

Fantastic fifth wheel: The opening text page recalls that Ant-Man blames Dr. Doom for the death of his daughter Cassie. This hasn’t been made explicit in the story itself, but it does add extra motivation to his actions.

When fighting John, She-Hulk and Darla do a variation of the X-Men’s famous “fastball maneuver,” with Darla throwing She-Hulk at John.

Medusa’s history lesson is about Herodotus, The Iliad, and a historical representation of women through the centuries. Sounds like heavy stuff, but the Foundation kids are geniuses, remember.

Darla tries on a number of helmets to protect her head while in her Thing suit. Dragon Man gives her an invisible helmet that was originally built to mimic Sue’s powers. Some of her other options include the metal helmet Ben wore after Wolverine scratched his face. Sue’s Malice mask (where did Darla get that?), and the Mask of Mandragora from the Negative Zone and/or from Dr. Who.  

Foundational: While Vil and Wu have normally been silent throughout this run, they do talk in this issue, calling their uncle “Pop-pop” several times.

Onome is unimpressed with Lockjaw, saying that back in Wakanda, her father owns a panther.

Willie Lumpkin is shown teaching a class for the Foundation kids, with “birds” and “bees” written on a chalkboard. Make of that what you will.

Trivia time: There’s a lot of backstory involving Ahura. He was born without permission of the Inhuman high council, and grew up in secret. He has the same madness as his uncle, Maximus, but in this issue he insists he’s gotten over it. The Marvel Wiki names him as an official member of the Future Foundation starting with this issue.

There’s also a lot of drama surrounding Luna. While we were initially told that she had no super powers, that changed over time. During the Decimation crossover, she played a part in Quicksilver trying to terrigen mists to restore his powers. As for Luna, her powers involve seeing and interpreting people’s auras.

Fantastic or frightful? This issue is all over the place with subplots. The mystery of something being up with Medusa is our only throughline. It’s a comic that’s read better as part of the trade rather than a single, which is what comics have been for a while now.

Next: Go into the light.

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Want more? Check out my novel MOM, I’M BULLETPROOF. It’s a comedic/romantic/dramatic superhero epic! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08XPXBK14.

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