Between the Panels

The Flash is by far one of my favourite superhero shows. In university, I would book the tv in my dorm’s commons room every week to watch it live. I like the Flash for a lot of reasons, but the biggest reason for me is that Barry was honest about his strengths. He learned the hard way what he could do and what he couldn’t. In season 6 episode 15, Barry is faced with the reality that his powers aren’t as strong as he needs them to be and they are fading. Barry doesn’t believe he will be able to help the city because of how burnt out he is . This is when Iris tells him: “Barry, it's like you're stuck on this idea that the Flash is supposed to be limitless, but metas are the ones that have limits. I mean, think about it. Where would the Ringmaster be without his rings? Or Cicada without that dagger? Even Reverse-Flash and Sunshine, they... they have their limits.” When I am playing Destiny solo, before I go into a big battle I will make sure my abilities are recharged, even if t...

In the last couple of months, I, like so many others, have been completely swept away with the game taking the online competitive hero shooter world by storm, Marvel Rivals . I mean, how could I not! With solid gameplay, beautiful art direction, and so much care and attention to detail, the obvious love and admiration the developers have for the characters and their source materials makes this humble comic book nerdy giddy with glee. I fought my way through to Diamond rank in season zero, and am hoping I can hit Grandmaster this season, shouting many a loud “AGAIN!” as my main man, James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes , aka The Winter Soldier , busts out DPS like the Juggernaut busts through walls. Now, while ol’ Buchanan (as I affectionately refer to him) may be my main, I’ve been very conscious to ensure I’m not locked into him being the only character I can contribute to a team with. My heals with Luna Snow , or combo heals and DPS (damage per second) with Cloak and Dagger make for an e...

Living in our modern North American context, the word “ refuge ” isn’t a word we have to think about too terribly often. This is quite unique, historically speaking, as the idea of having a shelter from the dangers of the world is ubiquitous throughout history and culture. You don’t even have to go back far to the nuclear paranoia of the mid to late 20th century and the concept of a fallout shelter being a much more common notion to people’s minds. It’s almost comical to think about the fact that the term “safe space”, a reference to a place where you can be free from ridicule, is about the closest we tend to come in day to day conversation.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not here to mock the idea of safe spaces. Despite my more conservative doctrinal leanings, I’m not so removed from my millennial nature that I will start tossing around their term “snowflake” to the denigration of my peers. My intent today is quite the contrary, in fact. A need for safety and shelter is universal a...

Those who know me know that Destiny is hands down my favourite video game. I’ve been playing since Destiny 1, and jumped into the second one shortly after its release. I could give you many reasons why it’s my favourite, but right now I’m going to focus on one. In the Destiny games, there are several different varieties of enemies you face. In the first instalment you’re introduced to several of them, but it wasn’t until the later on in the second game that we find our perspective challenged. At different points, we find ourselves having to work together with two of our eldest enemies; the Cabal and the Eliksni . Both of these enemies have taken much from us, and us from them. However when we find ourselves fighting enemies we cannot stop alone, teaming up is our only option. Both the Cabal and Eliksni only came to our world because they were fleeing something else. Fear and misunderstanding are powerful enemies, and they caused us to quickly decide that these beings were enemies as w...

   Many stories have been told about Santa Claus over the years. From the children’s bedtime classic “The Night Before Christmas” and its wholesome presentation of Jolly Ol’ Saint Nick, to the Christmas all-timer twist on the mythology with Tim Allen’s The Santa Clause, to some of the even more twisted modern tales like Fat Man and Violent Night.    Not everyone remembers that Santa Clause is based on a real life figure from the history of the church, Saint Nicholas of Myra . He was an early Greek-descended Bishop, and he was most certainly not the jolly man in red from the Coca-Cola commercials.    Nicholas was alive during the one of the early church’s most significant controversies, the Arian heresy. Arius called into question the deity of Christ, making him out to be a lesser being, a god (lower case “g”), the first being created by God the Father, but not co-equal and co-eternal with the Father. A dangerous, Gospel-undermining view that actu...

Batman . I mean, hands down one of the coolest characters ever created. Some would argue he’s the greatest superhero of all time (they are obviously mistaken, Superman is the OG). But if you’ve been reading some of the more recent Batman comics, you’ll know that ol’ Brucie’s not doing so hot these days. It all kinda started when his bride to be, Selina Kyle (better known to some as Catwoman ) left him at the alter. What had, to that point, been something of an upward trend for the Dark Knight suddenly took a hard pivot into the awful and the poor guy has not been able to catch a break since. Now, sure, some of these things have been factors well outside of his control. Like being trapped thousands of miles away while Bane killed Alfred , his belov'd mentor and adoptive father. Or having Penguin fake his own death and framing him for it triggering a robotic failsafe that Batman had, unbeknownst even to himself, designed to stop himself were he ever to violate his own code and go ...

SPOILER ALERT ! If you haven’t had a chance to watch the most recent season of My Hero Academia, but intend to and you don’t want spoilers, you may want to stop reading now. For years there has been suspicion of a traitor within UA. We now know this was, in fact, the case. And the traitor was none other than Mr. Can’t Stop Twinkling himself, Aoyama . To this point little more than a source of awkward comic relief, Aoyama’s betrayal of his fellow classmates hits like an emotional freight train, particularly in understanding all the nuances of what led to it in the first place, which I will not spoil here. But what hits even harder is the immediate love, grace, and forgiveness the rest of Class 1A show their troubled comrade almost instantaneously. Their willingness to move past the betrayal and still embrace him as their comrade and fellow hero is a display so stunning as to almost come off as unrealistic. Who could ever look past such devastating betrayal so quickly and with such pat...

Hey guys! PLo here, and I want to chat a bit about not a bird or plane, but Superman . I will be honest and say that for years I thought Superman was lame. He had all these powers and only one weakness and I just didn’t feel like I could relate to the character. And then came Henry Cavill. I remember the first time I watched Man of Steel . I was instantly sold on the character. Henry played not just Superman, but Clark Kent. And he brought a human side to the character that I had never seen before. I could relate to him, knowing he’s not of this world, but has been sent here for a time and is tasked with making this world a better place with the amazing abilities he has been given. But we aren’t going to be talking about the obvious “not of this world” angle today. No, we’re gonna talk about his name . Throughout the scriptures, time and time again, we see how important names are to God and just how thoughtful He is in how He names His people. He had Sarah name her first born Isaac, wh...

In the grimdark world of the far future, there is only…lore. I, like many others, have been swept up by the splatterific and squelchy good time that is Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine 2 . As is my way with any property I interact with, I can’t content myself with simply enjoying the thing in question but instead will never be satisfied until I’ve hyper fixated my way through a deep dive into the lore. And there are few deeper lore dives across all fandoms as can be found with 40k! From a biblical perspective, this franchise in all of its grimdark, blood-soaked, nightmarish glory, actually has a monumental amount to chew on. From the fascinating exploration of mankind’s compulsion for worship with the Imperium of Man, to its emphasis on brotherhood and loyalty, to its exploration of the horrors of war. But one through line that is incredibly prominent, particularly in the narrative of the Space Marine games, is the idea of heresy. The Imperium of Man is a theocracy, with a deified figure ...

Have you ever struggled with confidence? I mean  really  struggled? Felt like you weren’t good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, brave enough, strong enough? If so, you’re far from alone. I’ve been there too. In fact, I was there recently. Felt like no matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried, I was letting people down. During this time, God brought encouragement to me from a couple of unexpected places. A rock man and a rock band. The rock man Eijiro Kirishima , aka Red Riot , from  My Hero Academia . Kirishima feels he has a super lame quirk. He could harden his body. He then had a chance to step up and save some of his classmates…and he blew it. In the aftermath, he felt his resolve break. Then, he rewatches an old clip from one of his heroes that inspires him to keep fighting. So what if his power was lame? He would make it less lame through hard work. So what if he froze one time? He would fight to never freeze again. Despite continuing to feel inadequate, an...

We recently lost an absolute legend. I don’t know that there’s ever been a more influential TV show in existence than Dragon Ball Z . When news broke of Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama ’s passing, social media blew up with fan art, tributes, and heartfelt goodbyes. From his iconic artwork, to his epic storytelling, Toriyama-san blended action, comedy, and drama together for titanic battles with high stakes, and even higher power levels (over 9,000!!!) Throughout Dragon Ball, there’s tons of thought-provoking topics to delve into. Gods, aliens, death and resurrection, spending thirty minutes staring someone down screaming at the top of your lungs. But one thing about the show stands out to me as a poignant example of a principle many of us would find very challenging. Goku is a sometimes over-eager fighter with a heart of gold. As such, he squares off with all manner of colorful, disreputable, and outright malevolent foes. Yet, from the likes of Yamcha, Oolong, and Tien Shinhan, to ...

To Me My X-Men ! Now you may have likely heard this phrase come up fairly frequently over the past month or so as the new series X-Men ‘97 has been coming out. And for me as a 90’s kid who watched the original X-Men series; I'm not gonna lie, I was super amped to be watching this. I was going to be able to finally see my favorite superheroes like Gambit, Wolverine, Rogue, and let's be honest, Nightcrawler! We're desperately hoping for Nightcrawler. It brought back some awesome nostalgic moments to the point where I started rewatching old episodes just so I could feel like I was catching up. As X-Men ‘97 was going to be continuing on where the original X-Men series was ending. Here's the thing though, as we are approaching in X-Men ‘97, there is a sad reality that's hitting all of us nerds. There would be no Professor X, because in the original series Professor X has passed away after an assassination attempt on his life and was unable to make it after much needed m...

It’s hard for anyone to deny the impact that the groundbreaking series,   Attack on Titan , has had on the anime fandom. And rightly so! It’s easily one of the most compelling shows on television. For over a decade it kept fans rabidly theorizing and desperately waiting for the next episode to drop. The show doesn’t shy away from lofty questions and challenging ideas, to the point that a lot of it would be impossible to cover in a quick little nerdy blog post. So instead, I’m going to think a little broader. A little bigger. I’m talking about giants . The premise of the show is that the last remnants of humanity try to survive behind huge walls keeping out the hoards of giant man-eating beings (“ titans ”) until one day when they break through. Reflecting about facing down giants, any church kid’s brain is likely to go one to place in particular: David and Goliath .  There’s some debate as to just how big Goliath was, but it is traditionally held that he was “six cubits and a ...

Lately I've been reading this awesome manga series that I highly recommend you guys check out. It's called Kaiju No. 8 . and it features this young man, Kafka , who essentially is part of this police force that tries to take down these giant monsters or Kaiju in Japan. • What I really like about this guy Kafka,  is an older dude. He is not one of these young bucks that are out there fighting. He's actually 32, which is kind of relatable with me at 34, and even gets the term "old timer" throughout the series. Man, talk about feeling it in your knees. Kind of reminds me of how I feel when I'm hanging out with my kids. But really, it made me start going into nostalgia mode, having memories of playing  Super Smash Brothers on my NES ( Nintendo Entertainment System ) when I was a kid or you know, loving the old school retro games like Golden Axe, Double Dragon or even, dare I say, ET. Yeah, some of you might have cringed when I threw that one out there. But really...