What Would Captain Kirk Do?
By Dan Brown Does Captain Kirk believe in free speech, or would he suppress hateful speech to make sure positivity prevails? That question has been running through my mind this week after Paramount + and CBS Studios announced they are cancelling the newest Star Trek series, Starfleet Academy. The show was savaged by older fans who found it too “woke.” (Full disclosure: I have seen only a few clips from the first season, so I don’t have an opinion on it, which doesn’t matter to the discussion at hand.) Starfleet Academy had its season finale on March 12 after debuting in January. A second season is already in the can, so its sophomore instalment will be its last, whenever it airs. “Across its 10-episode first season, it has failed to rank on the Nielsen Top 10 streaming viewership charts,” Variety reported. So Starfleet Academy was killed in the cradle. And fans have been reacting all week. Some hated the program for its apparent progressive politics. Some loved it for that same reason. Others argued the series hadn’t even found its voice yet. I do know it features many actors I love, like Holly Hunter, Paul Giamatti and Tatiana Maslany. I belong to a few Star Trek fan groups on Facebook and I’ve seen fans sounding off in the last few days. As you might expect, they have strong opinions. On one particular page, which I’m not going to identify, fans were warned by the admins that hateful comments about the cancelled series wouldn’t be tolerated, nor would trolling or malicious celebrations of Starfleet Academy’s demise. They warned members to keep it civil or their toxic comments would be deleted, and repeat offenders would be banned from participating. Which, of course, set off a crapstorm. Many members did not appreciate being told what tone of voice they should use. Some took the caution as their cue to leave the group. In subsequent posts, the admins tried to clarify the restrictions they were imposing, but the damage had already been done. I noticed one sentiment cropped up several times in the comments: Preventing people from commenting freely was not a very Star Trek thing to do, some argued. In fact, it runs counter to the spirit at the core of the Gene Roddenberry-created franchise, they said. Me, I was taken aback by the preemptive strike on possible Starfleet Academy bashing. And since then, I’ve been turning it over in my mind. What’s better for a fan group: To let passionate enthusiasts have their say without placing any limits on their speech, or to weed out divisive comments so that it’s a positive space? What would Captain Kirk say, if he was in charge of this Facebook group, or in charge of the entire internet? Because it's a much bigger issue. I like to think Kirk, the Enterprise captain I grew up watching, would lead by example, but wouldn’t outright censor anybody. Roddenberry himself didn’t live long enough to see the internet flower into the global communications hub it is today. But he certainly understood what Star Trek meant to him. Here’s an oft-quoted statement the Great Bird of the Galaxy made about his intent in creating the show: “Star Trek was an attempt to say that humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate, but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in life forms . . . If we cannot learn to actually enjoy those small differences, to take a positive delight in those small differences between our own kind, here on this planet, then we do not deserve to go out into space and meet the diversity that is almost certainly out there.” So if you’re trying to create a utopia, is it better to let public discourse flow freely, or to weed out toxicity? I know what William Shatner (as opposed to the character he played) would do: He’d find a way to monetize the debate. But how do you think Kirk would respond? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments! Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 33 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
GRAPHIC NOVEL COLUMN: Spring mini-reviews
By Dan Brown It’s that time again . . . when I give you the lowdown on the comics I’ve been reading lately. Here, in no particular order, are brief reviews of a few of the titles I’ve picked up recently from the L.A. Mood new-releases shelf. As always, there's no logic to my choices, these ones just caught my fancy. Fantastic Four No. 7 and 8: The creative team of writer Ryan North and penciller Humberto Ramos has hit its stride. The superhero foursome is forced to leave Earth after receiving a cryptic message from Galactus about Sue Storm. At the end of issue No. 8, they discover an alternative-reality Invisible Woman who is powerful enough to defeat the World Devourer on her own. “You can call me the Invincible Woman,” the baddie says, “I’ve been killing Galactus.” North and Ramos know just when to hit the accelerator, and when to lay off. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles no. 15: I just love the variant portrait cover of this IDW Comic, which features a red-eyed Splinter, mentor to the young martial artists and my favourite Turtles character. It’s drawn by Ben Bishop and Kevin Eastman. If you’re a fan of Gene Luen Yang, sometime Superman writer, you’ll want to check this series out! Feral No. 13: Truly suspenseful tale about a group of cats trying to survive an apocalypse. In this issue, they plan to break into a Pet City Supercenter, which has all the food and treats to sustain them. The problem: It’s guarded by angry, sick dogs. Love the art from Trish Forstner and Tone Rodriguez. An Image joint. X-Men Annual No. 1: To give you some sense of how long it’s been since I picked up an X-Men book, I did not know Phoenix is again a member of the team. This is a self-reflexive story that reminds readers they are looking at a comic book. “We aren’t flesh and blood right now . . . we’re ideas,“ Jean Grey tells Wolverine when the pair travel to a sketchy “conceptual space” outside reality. X-Men United No. 1: The X-Men get together to start training young mutants again. I like this book’s spunky version of Kitty Pryde, as written by Eve L. Ewing and drawn by Tiago Palma. As a reminder of how far things have come since the Krakoa storyline, mentor Wolverine reminds his charges, “You’ve got one body.” Love that Cerebro is now the Empathy Engine. Logan: Black, White and Blood No. 3: Contains three self-contained untold stories of Wolverine’s past. There’s a horror Western, a civil-rights thriller, and a story in which he takes on Big Pharma! Wolverine: Weapons of Armageddon No. 1: Written by Chip Zdarsky (who seems to be everywhere these days), it shows the Canadian mutant tracking down someone who might be a younger version of himself! Teases a showdown with Nuke, the super-soldier introduced in the pages of Daredevil all those decades ago. Thundarr the Barbarian No. 1 and 2: Published by Dynamite, this is the comic that fans of the Steve Gerber-created character deserve! The setting is deliberately reminiscent of Jack Kirby’s animation designs from the 1980s Saturday-morning series. Writer Jason Aaron clearly put a lot of thought into making the post-apocalyptic world of Thundarr make sense. And yes, Ookla the Mok and Princess Ariel are at Thundarr’s side. Big Rig No. 1: This Vault comic is being sold as coming from the mind of Post Malone (the singer guy). He wrote it with Adrian Wassel. It’s frenetic and takes place in a landscape where demons roam the Earth. I liked the lush art by Nathan Gooden. Lady Mechanika No. 1: Published by Image Comics (the series actually started with Issue 0). Steampunk horror is not really my thing, so I’m not the target audience. More than just the title character – who is searching for her creator – have mechanical limbs. Written and drawn by Joe Benitez. The Dark Knight Returns: This facsimile release reprints the Frank Miller classic from 40 years ago that thrilled comic fans and changed the industry forever. Comes in regular and foil versions, as well as with a variant cover by Jim Lee showing a weary Bats sitting in the tank version of the Batmobile. What have you been reading lately? Are there any comics you would like to recommend – possibly ones that got you through the winter? Let me know in the comments! Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than three decades as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
POP CULTURE: The Oscars Recognize Drew Struzan
By Dan Brown Drew Struzan’s name cropped up at the Oscars on Sunday. He’s a guy who never got a nomination in his 78 years, but surely deserved an award for his lifetime of service to Hollywood. Struzan – who was mentioned during the ever-expanding In Memoriam segment – defined movie imagery for a generation of film fans like me, even though he never made or appeared in a motion picture himself. He died last October in Pasadena. We may never see another cinema artist who has as vast an influence as Struzan did. If you grew up geeky in the 1970s or 1980s, you knew his work — even if you had never met him or didn’t know what he looked like. He was billed at the Academy Awards telecast as a poster artist, which doesn’t sit well with diehard movie enthusiasts who considered him a visionary genius. As a kid, I thought the right word to describe his work was “photorealistic,” but his trademark style was actually the result of airbrushing, which was much in vogue in the 1970s. Especially if you owned a Chevy van. Perhaps the first work of his I came across wasn’t on a poster, but the cover of a paperback edition of Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The publisher took Struzan art from Blade Runner and used it as the front, since the Dick novel was the source material for Ridley Scott’s 1982 sci-fi feature. I remember looking at that cover, eyeing the likeness of Harrison Ford closely, and thinking, “This can’t be a drawing or a painting, it’s too detailed. This must be a photo.” That was my first awareness of Drew Struzan. I was 13 years old. I was already in love with movies, and movie posters. Struzan began his career with one-sheets for such drive-in fare as Empire of the Ants and Food of the Gods, then caught a lucky break helping a fellow artist with a poster to announce the re-release in 1978 of Star Wars. The result of their collaboration was a meta-poster: The painted composition looks like an old circus poster plastered on the plywood fence around a construction site. It was also the beginning of his long partnership with George Lucas. Even after Struzan ended his career, he would come out of retirement to help the Star Wars creator with art for such movies as The Phantom Menace. His other posters included E.T.: The Extraterrestrial, Back to the Future, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Risky Business, Coming to America, the Goonies and the Muppet Movie. He could produce intricately crafted images, and he could so on a tight deadline: He painted the poster for John Carpenter’s The Thing remake literally overnight. For a generation of geeks like yours truly, Struzan’s posters defined the look of motion pictures. He brought aliens, adventurers, weirdos, muppets and Tom Cruise to life when young people weren’t sitting in a theatre. To understand his influence, you have to remember the context he was working in: VCRs were scarce back then, so you could see movies only in theatres, or occasionally on network TV. Posters were the main representation in the public’s mind of any given film because trailers weren’t as omnipresent as they are now. We had no YouTube to watch them on. Believe it or not, there was a time when people decided to see one film over another based solely on the posters outside the theatre, and Struzan deserves a golden statuette simply for the fact he sold countless movie tickets in his decades-long career. (For all I know, the Oscar folks may have tried to give him an honorary Oscar, but his family turned them down; Struzan suffered from Alzheimer’s in his later years.) Drew Struzan was one of the all-time greats, and is a personal favourite of mine, along with Nick Cardy. We may never see Struzan’s like again. All these decades later, I’m amazed Hollywood is still using movie posters to advertise their products. The artistry of posters persists, but this form of art could be living on borrowed time, along with movie houses themselves. We can only hope future generations of film fans recognize the artistry that’s involved, and keep demanding posters rendered exclusively by human hands. Our responsibility is to help educate those future geeks, making sure the names of creators like Drew Struzan don’t pass entirely from the collective memory. Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 33 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Goon References Please GNG
By Dan Brown SPOILER WARNING: This column contains plot details about Eric Powell’s Goon, so if you value surprise, do not continue reading. Stop now! The L.A. Mood Graphic-Novel Group convened on Saturday, March 14. Here’s a brief account of our discussion. The book: The Goon: Bunch of Old Crap Volume 1, which collects the character’s earliest stories. The discussion: Most of us appreciated the Goon, even if it wasn’t really our thing. Me, I loved it. I knew little about the Goon before this. I had a vague awareness of the long-running comic, and its supernatural flavour, but I had not actually read any of the his adventures. What can I say? Powell’s heedless spirit, which imbues the book with a unique energy, bowled me over. The collection was pitched by GNG member and L.A. Mood employee Matt. Much of our discussion centred around the book’s many references to the original source material that fired Powell’s imagination. For those who are new to the antihero, the Goon’s first issue came out in 1999. I found it to be a blend of ingredients that I have not seen in any other comics. One of Powell’s biggest inspirations is clearly Mad Magazine. You can feel the fun, anything-goes, slightly gross vibe in every panel. The protagonist – who looks like a giant boxer of old – is a former circus worker who becomes an enforcer for a mob boss. The twist, which comes fairly early in the chronology of the series, is the mob boss doesn’t exist – the Goon is himself the brains of the operation. He is accompanied by his homicidal sidekick Franky, who has eyes that lack pupils. Shades of Little Orphan Annie. It takes place on Lonely Street in a burg that is reminiscent of Central City, home to Will Eisner’s Spirit. The bane of the Goon’s existence are the zombies that keep popping up, only to be dispatched by his fist or a blast from a revolver. There are many other monsters rampaging about, like the sea creatures that evoke H.P. Lovecraft. There’s even a gigantic lizard-type baddie created by Powell as a way to express his love for such rubber-monster movies as Godzilla. Powell was also clearly influenced by Jack Kirby. The Goon often appears in action-packed spreads that unfold over two pages. Another source is the films noir of the 1940s. Franky is always seen in the duo's bar hangout trying to romance one dame or another. Even better, it’s so much fun to watch Powell cycle through so many different styles of illustrating. He never stops evolving. And for fans of old-school comics like yours truly, the throwback sound effects are a delight: Klang! Slap! Krash! Pow! I was in my glory. There are several more omnibus volumes of the Goon to enjoy, and I intend to get all of them. L.A. Mood’s Graphic-Novel Group meets the second Saturday of each month. Next month’s selection is from London comic creators Scott Wojcik and Eric Olcsvary, we are reading issues 1 and 2 of their Monster of the Abyss series. The group is set to meet next on Saturday April 11 at 11 a.m. at store’s the gaming tables. If you're interested in comics or graphic novels, we’d love to have you join us! Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Are We On the Verge of an Age of Authenticity?
By Dan Brown Back in the day, young people wanted to usher in the age of Aquarius. Today, young people are ushering in an age of authenticity. And there’s actually a connection between the two, which I’ll get to in a moment. But how do I know that authenticity matters a lot to twentysomethings? Because I teach and mentor university students in both my day jobs. It’s a word they use ALL the time. In their texts, authenticity is rendered as “auth.” There’s also “gen” for genuine and “real” and “legit.” Whatever word they use, it stands for the same concept: These students are turned off by fakery and pretension, and want to get beyond surface appearances because they prize the truth. The funny part is, today’s university students actually have a lot in common with the hippies of yesteryear, who rejected the square establishment in favour of a lifestyle that allowed them to live in a more grounded way. It’s true kids in 2026 are different in important ways from the long-hair crowd of the 1960s. For example, some critics say Generation Z was raised by their cellphones. What I do know for sure is they are tired of people trying to deceive them. In fact, it might stem from being on their phones a lot, using things like dating apps – which include photos of potential partners that have been touched up via digital trickery to give the impression of perfection. They’re sick of being catfished. They are also tired of being lied to by governments, corporations, influencers and celebrities. They were raised in a world of jargon-packed press releases that obscure, rather than communicate, vital information. They don’t want to be told there is “collateral damage” in the U.S. war on Iran when what that term really means is innocent schoolchildren are being killed. They abhor the artificial, the synthetic, the counterfeit. The manufactured. The – to borrow another popular word – performative. “People have an instinctive reaction to what feels authentic. We recoil from what feels fake,” DC Comics head Jim Lee said in a speech last year committing the company to never use AI-generated art or writing in its products You can see it everywhere. For instance, since so many young adults value quality over quantity, they shop at thrift stores instead of buying so-called “fast fashion” that damages the environment. They would rather have honest, old-fashioned clothing instead of items that look great but can only be worn once or twice before disintegrating. The surface image isn’t enough for them anymore. And sure, there are exceptions to what I’m telling you, Gen Zers who don’t embody the qualities I’ve listed here. No question. There always are. But what’s so interesting to me is how the hippies are actually role models for Zoomers in a lot of ways. Their reaction against the mainstream in the 1960s set the stage for Gen Z now. That reaction led to young Boomers leaving cities for rural communes. It led to Coke adopting the slogan, “It’s the real thing.” It led to Sly and the Family Stone singing, “Don’t let the plastic bring you down.” And it eventually sparked the rise of a value system that sees things that are artificial as treacherous, and views leaders who are pretending to be something they’re not as unworthy of trust. Authenticity is the ultimate asset and competitive advantage in 2026. And twentysomethings are craving it, maybe even more than their Baby Boomer predecessors once yearned for a sincere, simple way to live. Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 33 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
One World Under Doom is Latest Marvel Event
By Dan Brown Spoiler warning: This review contains plot points involving Marvel characters, so if you value surprise stop reading now. If you’re a fan of big Marvel events – the company-wide crossovers that depict all of Marvel’s heroes uniting against a common foe – then you’ll love the collected One World Under Doom. It contains all nine issues from the main One World Under Doom title, which unspooled from February to November last year. The premise: Latverian dictator Doctor Doom takes over the planet, making the entire globe his domain. The unexpected reaction: Some people welcome the apparent Utopia Doom is offering. So not only do superheroes like the Thing, Captain America and Thor have to battle the armoured villain, but they also find themselves waging a public-relations war. “He’s given the world peace, health care, education, food security,” Squirrel Girl, a minor Avenger, laments at one point. Written by Ryan North with pencils by R.B. Silva, the series followed on the heels of another crossover, Blood Hunt. The anthology has a cover that’s a riff on a cover from 1977, the one for Super-Villain Team-Up No. 14. It shows the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, Spider-Man and the X-Men kneeling before their nemesis, who is not only a scientific genius, but was also the Sorcerer Supreme in the Marvel continuity of last year. In the early chapters, the good guys come across as complacent. Taking an invisible jet liner to Eastern Europe, they find it impossible to breach the magic bubble protecting Doom’s castle. What seemed like just another Doom ploy soon leaves the heroes without a good answer. As they continue to battle Doom’s allies, like his army of Doombots and assorted Hydra flunkies, his political support across nations grows. “We just need to make him look weak and silly and angry,” Johnny Storm (the Human Torch) reasons. Turns out doing so is easier said than done. Even such champions of justice as Thor, who is himself the monarch of Asgard, begin to question whether Doom being emperor is such a rotten development. Some of the chapters are told from Doom’s point of view, and one even contains a Jack Kirbyesque collage. Doom’s tangle with Dormammu is the artistic highlight of the book. Of course, not everything is as it seems. When the protagonists do finally find a way to get inside the castle, they find a massive complex beneath it where Doom has imprisoned the population of Latveria and is draining the life force from each resident, shortening their lives while boosting his powers. Valeria Richards, the daughter of Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Woman, plays a big role in the story. If you have been reading Marvel in recent years, you will know she is Doom’s goddaughter, and possibly the only other human being he cares about. She tries to talk him out of his plan, becoming collateral damage in the final battle scene. Big crossovers are now a staple of comic companies like Marvel and DC, and have been since the 1980s. If you’re hungry for some superhero action that may also provoke thought about current politics, check out One World Under Doom. Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
