We already won

Geek culture isn’t ‘taking over.’ That already happened.

It is with great joy I bring you the following op-ed: We won! The war is over. Go grab a nurse in Times Square and lay a big wet one on her (or him). The verdict is in. The jocks lost to the nerds, the cynics have retreated against the enlightened onslaught of the dreamers. The folks who asked “what if” got their answer while the ones who ask ‘why?’ were left behind like so many Kurt Cameron movie adaptations (see what I did there?).

Today is Halloween, 2014, the biggest official Cosplay day of the year. We’ve de-fanged the witless downers and non-believers by changing the terminology from ‘dress-up’ to cosplay, comic book to graphic novel and super-hero movie to blockbuster. But it hasn’t been an easy road for those of us who embrace fantasy and sci-fi culture. Like so many others, I was ridiculed in my early years for my love of (nearly) all things geek.

It's no secret that superhero and sci-fi films (and culture) have become the biggest entertainment properties on Earth. In 2012, I had a boyhood dream come true when Marvel Studio’s The Avengers became the single-highest grossing box office film of all time (worldwide) raking in $1.6 billion. Audiences the world over threw mad love (and crazy cash!) at Marvel’s iconic superhero mash-up film. Since I have been reading the Avengers since age 7 (thats almost 40 years of being a fan for anyone keeping track), seeing Marvel's The Avengers was one of the greatest moments of my life. 

Assembling Winners

The Avengers were hands down my favorite comic book growing up. Five years ago, you likely didn’t even know that name, not if you grew up without appreciating Marvel comics. I guess it’s no surprise that the latest Avengers (Age of Ultron) movie trailer broke all kinds of internet and YouTube viewing records. The phenomenon is just beginning. 

The explosion of Marvel’s success at the box office shows these movies resonate with many people and are here to stay. I guess I wasn’t reading “funny books”–as my mom would call them–when I was younger. Of course if Mom had ever taken the time to read Crisis on Infinite Earths, Judge Dredd, The Walking Dead, The Dark Phoenix Saga or the The Dark Knight Returns, she might rethink that terminology. 

A Future Worth Exploring

And as more people then ever in the history of cinema flock to these films of larger-than-life heroes and heroic figures, the cynics and critics keep trying to take cheap knocks at the characters I have spent a lifetime reading about, cherishing and even creating. TV shows like the Walking Dead, Arrow and Gotham continue to resonate with everyone, not just geek culture. Praying for it to end? Won’t happen. 

Give up now, join us. These shows are fun, well-handled, well-scripted, well-acted and compelling movies that only keep getting better. While I won’t be wearing any costumes this Halloween, I will be at my desk, giggling like a school girl as I pour over all the Marvel studios and Warner Brothers/DC movie news. 

My Condolences 

For those that don’t like it, I'm really sorry the optimistic young child who used to reside in you died striving against that boring, dismissive, closed-minded grump you’ve become. Just know it’s not too late to revert back to the cooler, funner, brighter-eyed you. Simply embrace the fact that this [geek] culture is here to stay and will only keep getting bigger. Join us!

Between Comicons, Cosplay, Superhero TV and movies, comic books, novels and graphic novels boring stuff–that is people and content with no imagination–just doesn’t cut it anymore. Just waive the white flag, because in case you didn’t hear, we won. 

Arthur Milano is a blogger, writer, designer and avid geek culture enthusiast who revels in his continuing role as a single Dad, ad man, and video game podcaster.

My Random 2012 Rewind

Time once again, for some of my most random thoughts – from the
"funtastic to the fantastic", here are 12 things we all lived through in 2012, through the eyes of those of us in the corner.

Gangnam of Thieves – Korean rapper Psy's Gangnam Style has now officially become THE most watched video of all time. The one-hit wonder has spawned a number of spin-offs and spoofs that have taken YouTube by storm. The once controversial artist has been widely accepted by his countrymen, MTV and the White House alike. A previous 'political thug' in his homeland of South Korea, Psy does now have a legit place in history. We will likely hear no more from this admittedly infectious little jam and that's just fine by me.

Boo Boo Knows Best – During this presidential election year, the  MOST watched television programming during the election of this country's, perhaps even the world's most important position of power was not the RNC or the Democratic conventions, it wasn't even the debates. It was coverage of America's newest sweetheart, pudgy princess of purgatory, Honey Boo Boo. Maybe the apocalypse did occur... 


"We will not fade quietly into the night–!" – So yet another 'end-of-days' has come and gone. Those crafty Mayans had a calendar that abruptly ended on December 21, 2012 which left many pondering the end of the world as we know it. As we all know, not very much happened, though there was a massive spike in tourism to Peru to see the Mayan ruins. The Mayans were of course, known for building a massive civilization and empire but honestly, they didn't even see the Spaniards coming. 


Rhymes with Snit – From out of the languishing ranks of lost souls from the Grand Old Party came a silver-tongued super-villian hell bent on sewing seeds of mistrust, deceit and lies throughout our fragile economy and deceiving nearly half of our countrymen that he was all that and a bag of chips on a shoulder. MItt Romney's laughable campaign of vapid emptiness took the country by storm until even Mitt's own kin folk woke up, hours before the election and said "WTF?" Swing and a miss, Mitt.

Free Eye Glasses with Every Paycheck! – ... aaaand speaking of poor judgement, the lofty referee lockout at the beginning of this year's NFL season saw a phalanx of scab referees hit the field–and football fans everywhere hit the bar, hit the bottle and hit the floor in utter disbelief as scores of horrifically bad calls bellowed when bad whistles blew for four weeks that utterly decimated the NFL with some to the most atrocious calling since Dewey vs Truman.

"And there came a day..." – I'm still reeling from the onscreen awesomeness that was Marvel's The Avengers, a near-perfect super-hero mash-up that smashed box office records, our perception of hero movies and puny Gods alike. With a $1.5 billion box office performance, the Avengers is just heating up. Expect more hero adventures in Thor and Iron man in 2013. As my favorite book growing up, the Avengers were, how do you say? The bomb diggity–! There, I said it and there's no taking it back.


Darth Vader gets Goofy – In one the most mesmerizing business buyouts of ALL TIME, Disney purchases the Star Wars intellectual property and rights to the franchise from an increasingly perplexing George Lucas for a mere $4.05 billion. While I am ELATED at the prospect of more SW movies, didn't George make like, $4 billion in merchandising alone? "Join me and together we can rule the empire...!" Done, done and done.


Standing Room Only – In one of 2013's most bizarre mass media events, Hollywood bad boy and conservative whack-a-doodle, Clint Eastwood has a conversation in front of the entire non-Honey-Boo-Boo-watching country with an invisible Barack Obama. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Dirty Harry goes off on an empty chair in front of... well all of us. I don't think the RNC has been this embarrassed since Sarah Pailin went all "hockey Mom" with her "drill-baby-drill!" bit.

The Accessible Red Planet – In September, a VERY under-reported event and the next step in man's exploration of space unfolded as the Martian Rover, Curiosity, landed safely on the Red Planet. It's two-year mission is to take it's 19+ cameras and feed back images and even live video of our small blushing sister planet. Curiosity will open up new discussions about the nature of Mars. Get your ray-guns ready...

Massacres on Main Street – the mass murders in a movie theater in Aurora Colorado and Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown Connecticut show us how out-of-control our gun culture has become. I don't care where you stand on the gun control issue, if this country had it's sh*t together with properly enforced gun laws, 20 kindergarten kids and scores of othewr innocents would still be alive today. Period. Good thing Automatic Rifles are selling out in record numbers across the US. Nope, don't see how that could POSSIBLY make things worse. Not one bit. 

Brain Food – AMC's family-friendly series chronicals a group of survivors as they make their way through a zombie apocalypse. Complete with enough gore and bloodletting to rival a pork processing plant, The Walking Dead, based on the phenomenally well written monthly comic from Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore is the show that everyone is somehow just now discovering. The first half of the astonishingly well written season three is done and the story picks up again February 2013. If you haven't watched it yet – well good God what are you waiting for? It is waayyy beyond a guilty little pleasure–its an American icon.

Greatest Love of All – We said goodbye to a host of VIP-level personalities in 2012, but none will impact me more than the untimely death of R and B/Pop dive Whitney Houston. no one defined the 1980's pop scene like Whitney. Her demise and slow sinking into the mire of heavy drug use does nothing in my eyes to diminish her fantastic contributions to music. RIP girl, you're the Greatest!

Happy New Year – to all of you who have been sent to the corner–thanks for reading! 2013 is coming hard and fast and the new year will have a new format and new stuff for me to get int trouble over. See you then!

Avengers Assemble!

"Look at the size of those opening week attendance and revenue numbers... !"

Why Marvel's The Avengers is the
greatest movie of our time!

Fast paced, insanely fun and riddled with surprisingly entertaining dialogue, Marvel Studio's "The Avengers" is about overcoming adversity and forcing wildly different personalities to work together for the greater good. But the true nature of this film's success is the real story.

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past year, you no doubt have heard about The Avengers. The story is about the overcoming of impossible odds and a snapshot of what happens when the right people work together for the greater good.

"On that day... the Avengers were born"

The super-dream team's first epic.

Spawned in 1963 by comic book legends Stan "The Man" Lee and Jack "King" Kirby, the Avengers were first thought to be Marvel's answer to rival DC Comic's 'Justice League'. Not so. Marvel simply had loads of ideas and most, like The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and Dare Devil were overnight successes. Others, like the Hulk, Iron Man and Thor–not so much. So what to do? Put them all in a book together, of course!

The Avengers were the right concept realized at the right time. A bunch of misfit heroes jammed together where none of them were very interesting alone (at least at first) but together, they were gold!

No lie, the Avengers were hands-down my favorite comic book growing up. The array of different heroes; aliens, Gods, Demigods, Androids, Mutants, Super Soldiers, Sorcerers, even Cowboys–all came together to a lend their talents to Earth's mightiest heroes" (the Avenger's official tag line for decades). When the heat got to deep for anyone else, call the Avengers, they'll get the job done. 

(For a deeper look into the archetypes of modern man the Avengers represents, check out my analytical peak into the Avengers, here.) 

Enter the dark days.

Hey you, on the left, aren't you...?

After a bevy of overzealous printing, marketing and PR efforts while employing a slew of high-priced creative talent (some artists and writers receiving as much as a seven-figure annual salary!), along with some less-than-profitable TV and merchandising experiences, the once and mighty Marvel comics found itself considering bankruptcy by 1998. In order to save the company, Marvel sold the on-screen rights to many of their most popular intellectual properties to SONY and FOX who wanted them for the big screen.

What ensued were a series of wildly successful, if not frustratingly unfaithful movies starring each of the sold Marvel properties; The X-Men, The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Blade, The Punisher, Wolverine and Ghost Rider. All made money but none–minus perhaps the the first Spider-Man and X-MEN: First Class–stuck to the original source material, thereby never realizing their true potential. This, however, was a necessary evil. 

From the Ashes

An Iron-clad case for success...

An unforeseen side effect of the FOX and SONY hero movies was that Marvel, now flush with 5% kickback from the box office draws, began in 2004, to start their own movie production company. 

First up, Iron Man–followed by a slew of hit movies all with varied degrees of success, like Thor, The Incredible Hulk (c'mon, it was good, at least compared to the Ang Lee version) and Captain America. Establishing a track record of success paved the way to let Marvel Studios become a major force for entertainment in Hollywood and set the stage for The Avengers.

But it was not an easy, effortless road to victory. To acquire the capitol necessary to realize Avengers and the films leading up to it, Marvel had to put up the considerable value of their intellectual properties as collateral. That was a monumental risk, but it payed off. In spades!

As of this post, The Avengers has grossed more than $702 million in global ticket sales in just 11 days, the fasted to do so in movie history. 

(For a full movie review of The Avengers, visit my full movie review on my movie review site, here).

Why The Avengers Really Matters

Hey Hollywood–whose your daddy now?

The Avengers are like the UN Peace Keeping Force of comic books, with members from nearly every racial and socioeconomic strata, if not every corner of the galaxy. Heck, they even had an angry African guy called the Black Panther. This is the core of what makes the Avengers a success–their diversity. Great underlying, message but that's not even the real cherry on top.

Marvel so believed in their ability to produce better hero movies than anyone else in Hollywood, they were willing to bet the farm–double down, all or nothing–to make it happen. 

Reckless and worthy of being one of the greatest happily ever-after stories ever! Kudos to Faverau, Marvel, Whedon and the cast and crew that brought Avengers to us. 

Well done. Well done, indeed.