Just the Ticket

Article by Sean Wilkinson, a.k.a The Ticketmaster I had another title in mind for this post, but it would have spoiled the best joke in this week's episode, and we've been hearing about "Party Thor" ever since the Zombies episode, so it would also be more likely to get interest and circulation than my first choice. And speaking of interest, I didn't think this was a very interesting episode, so I may deviate from format this week. If you haven't seen the episode, or any that came before it, you can binge to your heart's content (and figure out for yourself just what the Hel a Party Thor even is) on the Disney+ app. Also, check out my coverage of the first six episodes at the following links: Episode 1:  "What If Captain Carter Were the First Avenger?" Episode 2:  "What If T'Challa Became A Star Lord?" Episode 3:  "What If the World Lost Its Mightiest Heroes?" Episode 4:  "What If Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead...

Article by Sean Wilkinson, a.k.a The Ticketmaster Just ask the local gentry; not everything can go together like love and marriage, a horse and carriage, peanut butter and chocolate (or jelly), or Canadian bacon and pineapple. As someone who eats peanut butter sandwiches with mayo and bananas, and likes pineapple on pizza, I'm probably not the epicurean expert some of you are looking for. But I've also never eaten love, marriage, horsemeat, or any part of a carriage (I don't possess nearly the level of demonic power or the dentition for those feats of philosophical gluttony), so I at least have some degree of sanity working in my favor. On to today's movie selection! In the tradition of subpar female-empowerment revenge fantasies like Peppermint and sexploitation video games like Lolipop Chainsaw , Netflix's RNG algorithm has regurgitated, for your viewing...viewing, Gunpowder Milkshake . Spoilers be damned, but watch it if you must. In a world that is equal parts ...

Article by Sean Wilkinson, a.k.a The Ticketmaster I'll have to begin this post with something of a retraction. I should have double-sourced the What If...? Mid-Season Trailer that I covered at the end of my last post. It was composed by a fan-trailer YouTube channel called "Screen Culture." There was only one other instance of the trailer on YouTube, and that poster has since taken it down, leaving Screen Culture as the only source of their video. I have looked into Screen Culture's other content, and they include such speculation-fests as a re-edited version of the official  No Way Home  trailer with added credits for Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, as well as legacy footage of Thomas Haden Church's Sandman, to name a few. Though I give props for their editing skills, I now urge you not to take anything Screen Culture puts forth at face value. Marvel's official Mid-Season Trailer, which I will address at the end of this post, has multiple shares and re-upl...

Article by Sean Wilkinson, a.k.a The Ticketmaster I'll say right up front that this week's episode of What If...?  is not my favorite. I am a huge fan of the genre on display (I have a whole blog series devoted to it, and I've been working on a novel in the genre for awhile now), but this episode didn't grab me. It didn't have much bite. It didn't make me use my brain. I'm dead serious. But if you want to let your mind rot before I spill my guts, go cure what ails you on Disney+ . The breakdown begins after the image. The Premise:  The episode title (and my collection of bad pun-hints) says it all: "What If...Zombies?" Bruce Banner is Bifrosted to the Sanctum Sanctorum, as he was at the beginning of Infinity War , at odds with the Hulk (though I think the idea of him being traumatized by Thanos would have been more interesting) and at the mercy of the Black Order. But New York is eerily depopulated...and Thanos hasn't done the snap yet! That...

Article by Sean Wilkinson, a.k.a The Ticketmaster Good news, Ticketholders! Sony has officially dropped their cumbersome franchise brand, "The Sony Pictures Universe Of Marvel Characters," in favor of the much more concise, but also kind of scope-limiting, "Sony's Spider-Man Universe." That isn't to say the pool of Spider-Man-adjacent characters is a small one, though. Name an animal, and chances are--whether they look like the animal in question or not--Spider-Man has fought a villain with that name. On top of that, he has at least three Goblins, a Spot, a Big Wheel, a Prowler, a Hunter, several vampires, electrical villains, sonic villains, water villains, fire villains, magic villains, a Universe full of Symbiotes, and even villains connected to other heroes (like the Sandman) in his rogues' gallery. Then there are all of the characters from his civilian life (including half a dozen or so ex-girlfriends for various reasons), and that's just for on...