I’m sorry that I didn’t get these posted yesterday as I was feeling under the weather. That’s a weird phrase. Aren’t we always under the weather? Anyway, on with the show.
Best Movie: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. I looked more forward to this then I did Avengers: Infinity War. Even though I’m a DC Comics fanboy, I had to see Spider-Verse shortly after its release and I have yet to see Aquaman. Animated superhero movies are so much more complimentary to the genre than live-action movies. I literally got choked up during several parts of Spider-Verse.
Best Album: I did not get a lot of new music in 2018 and some of the ones I did came out in 2017 like Ritual by In This Moment. Halestorm had a pretty decent album with Vicious but there were a number of songs on it that I didn’t care for. If I was picking song of the year it would be Dance Macabre by Ghost. A very catchy metal song that I could not get out of my head but the rest of Ghost’s new album was bland, in my opinion. Anyway, my album of the year was an album called Thief by a band called Callout. A little different than what I normally listen to but the album had a lot of songs that I kept finding myself listening to over and over again. Here’s a sample.
Best TV Show: 2018 was a great year for TV, at least for me. Season 5 of Agents of SHIELD was the best season they’ve had so far. Season 1 of Black Lightning was awesome until the season finale where the villain literally said he wanted to “Make America Great Again”. While I’m no fan of the tangerine nightmare from where that phrase originated, but I found that episode to be a little too ham-fisted. Also, I’ve fallen off the Black Lightning train as I dropped off during season 2. Season 1 of Cloak and Dagger was really good too but I felt their season finale was rushed to an ending. However, I am looking forward to the second season. However, there was one series that hit on all cylinders for me and it was Titans. Even I thought it was going to be bad after the infamous “Fuck Batman” trailer but it turned out to be a really well-done series that kept me looking forward to each new episode. I also appreciate the fact that DC Universe released episodes weekly instead of doing it Netflix-style by releasing all the episodes at once. I’m not a binge watcher and didn’t watch Daredevil season 3 because of that.
Best Comic: Vertigo’s Astro City. If you haven’t read Astro City, it takes place in Metropolis-like city where many superheroes reside but Astro City oftentimes features just the normal citizens trying to live in such a city. The storyline that made me pick Astro City as comic of the year was one where a man’s wife was erased from time during a Crisis-like event but the man still retained his memories of her and he went on to start a support group for people who lost loved ones in superhero/villain related calamities. Astro City was a great title that deconstructed the superhero genre without relying heavily on gratuitous violence.
Most Inane Political Agenda of 2018: Arming teachers. Anybody who thinks that arming teachers will prevent school shootings is a few McNuggets short of a happy meal. Arming teachers just puts guns even closer to the hands of would-be shooters.
Dumbasses of 2018: All the troglodytes who put any stock in the QAnon conspiracy theories. Because when I think of investigative fact-finding my first thought is always of 4chan.
Biggest Jackass Celebrity of 2018: I don’t know if he really qualifies as a ‘celebrity’ but it’s NRA President Oliver North for suggesting that Ritalin causes school shootings. This is who represents you, responsible gun owners.
18 years in a row now. I guess I’ll keep doing these after all.
The Trench Reynolds Report 