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Hey NOCs! My camera is on the fritz so until I get things fixed, I’ll be going back to written reviews for a bit, starting with our review of Joker, which debuts today at the 76th Venice International Film Festival. Minor spoilers ahead! When you think of Todd Philips, the genres “comic book movie” or “psychological […]

The upcoming Terminator: Dark Fate, starring Linda Hamilton and directed by Deadpool‘s Tim Miller, has an official trailer, and it kicks all kinds of ass.

There’s a lot of excitement here, including some absolutely brutal fight scenes and explosive action sequences, Arnold Schwarzenegger in what seems to be a training montage capacity, and Linda Hamilton being so effortlessly cool and tough in her return as Sarah Connor that I feel a little weak-kneed about it.

Linda Hamilton (“Sarah Connor”) and Arnold Schwarzenegger (“T-800”) return in their iconic roles in Terminator: Dark Fate, directed by Tim Miller (Deadpool) and produced by visionary filmmaker James Cameron and David Ellison. Following the events of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Terminator: Dark Fate also stars Mackenzie Davis, Natalia Reyes, Gabriel Luna, and Diego Boneta.

As our Terminator enthusiast Chelsea Steiner covered in the past, Miller has said that his female-led film will scare misogynistic internet trolls, a sentiment that has only increased our anticipation for this film.

When talking about [Mackenzie] Davis’s female terminator character Grace, he said, “If you’re at all enlightened, she’ll play like gangbusters. If you’re a closet misogynist, she’ll scare the f–k out of you, because she’s tough and strong but very feminine. We did not trade certain gender traits for others; she’s just very strong, and that frightens some dudes. You can see online the responses to some of the early s–t that’s out there, trolls on the internet. I don’t give a f–k.”

Bless you, Tim Miller. And bless Linda Hamilton’s existence.

(via YouTube, image: Paramount Pictures)

What else is on the docket today?

• For those in Florida, here’s what Hurricane Dorian is up to at the moment. (via Miami Herald)
• Spice Girls’ Mel C is an awesomely vocal trans ally. More of this. (via Pink News)

• NEW: Immigrants receiving life-saving medical care could be deported under Trump policy shift. Meet Maria Isabel Bueso, 24, whose participation in a medical trial has extended the life of many Americans with her rare disease. She was just told to leave. https://t.co/maorc7RGj6

  — Miriam Jordan (@mirjordan) August 29, 2019

• “The Amazon Fire Isn’t Just Climate Change — It’s Political Violence” (via Bitch Media)
• Writer Ijeoma Oluo on her experience being “swatted” by white supremacists. (via The Guardian)
• Hannah John-Kamen teases there could be a return for her Ant-Man and the Wasp character, reformed villain (we think), Ghost. Primarily because no one ever really goes away in the MCU. (via Comicbook.com)
• This whole thread, right here:
  

  The fact that the bar for men in games being “a good guy” basically boils down to “isn’t a harasser/rapist/abuser and isn’t actively covering for one” is so telling.

  Let’s get real:

  — Jessica Price (@Delafina777) August 29, 2019

Happy long weekend, if you’ve got one! What did you see today? What are your plans? Tell us in the comments.

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—The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—

If you don’t know much about Andrew Yang, there might be a good reason for that. Despite being popular enough both in polls and donors to qualify for the next debate, he’s gotten little attention from mainstream media outlets.

According to Real Clear Politics, Yang has been mentioned on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC barely 1,000 times since January. Compare that with more than 63,000 mentions for Biden, 31,600 for Harris, 28,000 for Sanders, and 20,000 mentions of Warren. Even candidates who have by now dropped out of the race due to lack of support like Gillibrand (3,000 mentions) and Hickenlooper (1,450) have gotten more media coverage.

Why isn’t the media taking Yang seriously? Well, to start, he doesn’t have a background in politics. (He’s an entrepreneur and philathropist with a nonprofit dedicated to job creation.) Most outlets are similarly dismissive of Marianne Williamson’s campaign, although she doesn’t have the sort of grassroots support Yang does.

There’s also his unique platform of “human-centered capitalism,” which includes giving every American a “freedom dividend” of $1,000 a month.

To many, that will definitely seem unrealistic or overly simplistic. But it’s not without precedent. Finland just recently ended a two-year experiment with universal basic income. Modesto, California has launched their own experiment, giving $500 a month to a select group of residents. Alaska has had state-wide universal income for years, with the amount fluctuating based on oil prices.

Other candidates, like Pete Buttigieg, have said they’re open to exploring the idea. In her 2017 memoir What Happened, Hillary Clinton revealed that she was considering introducing UBI into her campaign platform. At the time, she and her staff “decided it was exciting but not realistic,” although in the book, she expresses regret for not having “thrown caution to the wind and embraced ‘Alaska for America’ as a long-term goal and figured out the details later.”

So Yang’s plan isn’t that crazy and it could be an incredible trickle-up economic stimulus. It also seems to be a major driving force behind the most troubling part of Yang’s campaign: his huge number of alt-right supporters. Richard Spencer and Andrew Anglin, the Daily Stormer’s publisher, are two of his most prominent white nationalist supporters but they are far from the only ones.

Yang has disavowed those particular supporters, saying they are “antithetical to everything I stand for,” but that hasn’t stopped them from being vocal with their support. (He’s also appeared on Ben Shapiro and Joe Rogen’s podcasts this year, so he doesn’t seem to be working too hard to distance himself from those groups.)

So what’s behind the far-right support? For many, it appears that they view Yang as a natural successor to Trump, who ran on a promise that he would improve the lives of (white) Americans by building a border wall and bringing back all their jobs, either from their current overseas locations or by reviving dying industries. Many see Trump as having let them down, but for those who were so focused on what Trump’s election would do for them personally, $1000 might seem like a fine consolation prize. Couple that with a major political outsider with fringe ideas and there’s a sense that Yang’s presence in the race and at the debates is destabilizing to the Democratic Party.

Richard Spencer tweeted earlier this year that “Trumpism was the fantasy that America can be we saved. Yangism is the awareness that it can’t.”

Understanding Yang Gang:

1. The country is doomed
2. The rules don’t matter
3. We might as well get $1,000 a month

— Nicholas J. Fuentes (@NickJFuentes) March 13, 2019

Yang’s supporters (the #YangGang) are not all white supremacist 8channers, of course (and they’re not all driven by selfishness and nihilism), but they are, in general, Extremely Online.

A New York Times profile from earlier this year writes that Yang’s following “reflects the fractured nature of the modern internet. It has attracted economic wonks, tech-skeptic progressives, right-wing bigots, members of the so-called intellectual dark web and an assortment of half-serious trolls. (At times, watching the Yang Gang at work can feel like the political equivalent of the “Boaty McBoatface” episode — a group of bored internet mischief makers seeing how far they can push a joke.)”

The other thing about the Yang Gang is that they are incredibly devoted. They also express that devotion in very vocal, visible ways–with memes and videos–so the #YangGang’s online presence is hard to ignore.

The mainstream media, on the other hand, hasn’t been paying nearly as much attention to Yang. Yesterday, the Yang Gang got #YangMediaBlackout trending as a way to criticize the lack of media coverage.

#YangMediaBlackout Notice someone missing from this @HuffPost Banner? This is so incredibly unbelievable. pic.twitter.com/ED1JlukJV8

— Econ Major (@RS2BM) August 29, 2019

His name is Andrew Yang. #YangMediaBlackout #GoogleAndrewYang #YangGang pic.twitter.com/8X6H3BN56z

— Basic Income UN (@BasicIncomeUN) August 29, 2019

They’re especially angry at a CNN graphic that chose to feature Beto O’Rourke as a top-polling candidate, leaving off Yang, who has been polling higher than Beto.

The media blackout of Yang is dangerous to our democracy. They’re actively picking favorites and the #YangGang isn’t going to stand for it. #YangMediaBlackout pic.twitter.com/8niO28lKz4

— TeensforYang (@TeensforYang) August 29, 2019

I understand why the big media companies might be confused or put off by Yang. He’s a political outsider with an unusual campaign platform and a large number of alt-right followers, whose numbers are quickly growing. (He’s at 3% in some polls, up from 1% just earlier this month.)

I’m not saying anyone has to support Yang if they don’t connect with his ideas. But all of that sounds a whole lot like another candidate the media didn’t take seriously for far too long and, well, look how that turned out.

(image: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

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—The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—

Ever think of Marvel and think, “Huh, you know how they can be apolitical? By using Captain America, the super-soldier who punches Nazis”? No? Well, good for you! You’d be in the majority. It seems, however, that Marvel is trying to take a neutral stance and thinks that their Nazi-fighting good boy from Brooklyn is the way to do it—truly, a mistake.

In a new comic meant to honor the publisher’s history, Marvel Comics #1000 contained an essay by comics writer Mark Waid that talked about the state of America and what it means for a symbol like Captain America. The problem is that the essay was dropped from the issue, replaced by one less critical of America, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter based on early versions sent to retailers, with the final retail version on sale tomorrow.

(Waid has since told Newsarama, “The only comment I’ll offer is that the abridged version that’s being circulated by news outlets severely mischaracterizes what was actually written,” so we’ll certainly be interested to see the final version of the essay. You can already read the original in full.)

Here’s the thing: Captain America never has been and never will be apolitical. Sorry! Jack Kirby and Joe Simon literally made Captain America as a symbol for resistance against bigotry, racism, and hatred, so … he’s not apolitical in nature. As io9 points out, this isn’t the first time that Marvel has censored a writer to remain an apolitical body.

The situation with the Marvel Comics #1000 essay appears to be another example of Marvel Comics censoring its creators in an attempt to be apolitical, to the detriment of the company and its audience. You may recall EiC Cebulski going on record on the subject almost one year to the day: “We can’t get too deep into the politics,” he said of Marvel storylines.

(This is all also strikingly similar to another recent incident.)

What’s funny about the idea of not going “too deep into the politics” is that Captain America: Civil War is a real movie based on a real comic run that exists and is, if you recall, very political in its themes of security vs. freedom, especially in the 2006-7 timeframe it was released.

What’s interesting about this “apolitical” approach is that it’s happening now, after both Jack Kirby and Stan Lee are dead. These two created these characters with a message, tackling the issues in the world around them through heroes and their approach to a situation. Take away Captain America fighting against the injustice in America, and what do you have? A kid from Brooklyn who wants to punch things.

If you put Captain America in this current political landscape—as you should, because that’s why he was created—he’d hate that Nazis were being “protected” because of their right to free speech, and I’m pretty sure that Steve Rogers would march his American Ass to the White House and have a few words with Donald Trump over how he treats women, people of color, and anyone who isn’t rich and white.

So, while Marvel seems to think an apolitical approach is best, that’s definitely not the case. You have heroes who have political backgrounds who take a stand against injustice, and trying to turn them into something that is “apolitical” is a disservice to the characters and their creators.

(via io9, image: Marvel Entertainment)

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—The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—