Friday 5 collects five of the week’s biggest news items from nerd culture. Each Friday we’ll relay the latest trailers, biggest casting news, and nerd culture’s most important stories of the week. Let’s get right to it, shall we?
Nerd Culture Highlights for the Week of April 24, 2016
1. A look at the meaning behind superhero costumes and how they characterize the X-Men.
The following video is an argument against the black leather and “paintball armor” suits we’ve seen in all the X-Men films to date and an argument for the classic, colorful, faithful-to-the-comics costumes we know and love. And its about far more than nostalgia or fanboy complaining – it has to do the characters’ very identities and characterizations. The point he makes about Wolverine and Cyclops’ costumes serving as visual indicators of their conflicting ideologies and foils is particularly sharp.
2. There’s a new die in town, and its a mathematical and symmetrical marvel.
Two scientists from the Dice Lab, Robert Fathauer and Henry Segerman, have engineered a d120. And “engineered” is a 100% appropriate word given this disdyakis triacontahedron’s symmetry and numerically balanced, with each opposing face pair’s sum equaling 121 and every vertex’s (comprised of ten triangles) sum equaling 605 – the latter of which you can test for yourself using the image on the right if you feel so inclined.
3. The Wheel of Time is going to be a TV series after all.
This short but sweet piece from i09 is a lot of nerdy dreams come true. And Game of Thrones ain’t got nothing on Wheel of Time as far as the sheer amount of source material there is for it. Heck, the series’ primary author (Robert Jordan) passed away before bringing the narrative to its climactic close and it still got done (thanks to Brandon Sanderson). So what is George RR Martin’s excuse again…?
4. Batman: The Killing Joke’s trailer dropped this week.
Featuring the iconic vocal talents of Kevin Conroy (Batman) and Mark Hamill (the Joker), The Killing Joke is slated to be an R-rated animated port of DC’s 1988 graphic novel by Alan Moore. The narrative houses an origin story for The Joker who laments that all it takes to go insane is “one bad day.” In the present day, he submits Commissioner Gordon to one bad day of his own by shooting his daughter, stripping him naked, and subjecting him to images of his naked and critically wounded daughter, Barbara. And of course Batman comes on to the scene, but that’s where I’ll end the plot summary. The movie releases in July.
5. ComicsAlliance’s Superhero Movie Infographic
Updated through the year 2020 and expanded to include movies from several studios, it gives a nerd lots to look forward to. Forty-four superhero movies in the next four years. You have to go back nearly twice that far (2008 through 2015) to accumulate that total. Quantity is exciting, but quality is what I’m hoping for!
We’ll see you next Friday for five more highlights from nerd culture. Until then, feel free to share a highlight in the comments if we missed something.
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