Welcome back to Critical Blast’s long-running weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week.   Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that.  Let's get to it!

What did we talk about on Critical Blast this week?

Interview

After defeating the evil jumbie Severine, you'd think the people on Corinne LeMar's island home would be praising her. Instead they fear her. She's half jumbie after all and can't be trusted because of it. And when children start disappearing Corinne is the first suspect on everyone's list. To clear her name and rescue the missing children, Corinne must tag up with her old friends and seek out a water jumbie, Mama D'Leau. But Mama D'Leau won't help Corinne and her friends without aking a bargain. Her friends must travel with mermaids across the ocean to Ghana to retrieve a magical object before Mama D'Leau will tell Corinne what happened to the missing children. With everything against her, Corinne must once again rely on her friends and her courage to save the missing kids and her reputation.

I grew up watching SHA NA NA as a television variety show. And I was into it. Somewhere there exist blackmail photos of me with my (brown) leather jacket, my hair slicked back with Alberto VO5, and my oversized sunglasses. I was the most bad-ass 12-year-old you'd ever seen! So I was more than happy when the offer came to interview band frontman Jocko Marcellino. But it turned out there were things about SHA NA NA I did not know.

My first introduction to SHA NA NA was the television show, and I never looked back farther than that. But you guys actually played at Woodstock! What kind of tentpole was that in the band's history?

That was an extraordinary opportunity that was given to us by Jimi Hendrix. When we were starting out, we had stayed in school that summer. Then we decided to try and make it with the act. We had done eight professional gigs, and our eight professional gig was Woodstock.

If you're a reader of Marvel's comic book line (you know, those things they keep producing in order to maintain the trademark over the characters that make bank in the movies), then you're probably already aware that the publisher has elected to cancel a good sized handful of their titles.

One of the titles on the chopping block is ICEMAN, the solo adventures of one of the original X-Men. Drake's character first courted controversy when a time-traveling younger version of himself was outed in ALL-NEW X-MEN as gay. This contrasted with nearly 40 years of history where the character was demonstrably -- in word, deed, and (because this is comics) thought -- heterosexual. But Brian Michael Bendis threw in the twist, and there we had it. Bobby Drake was now gay, past and present.

Not a dream! Not a hoax! Not an imaginary story! The superheroes that have populated the four-color tales of the comic book pages have made the transition into reality. They go by names like Thanatos or Mr. Xtreme or Phoenix Jones. They have costumes and missions that drive them. And you may even have one operating in your city!

Author Nadia Fezzani has spent time with several of these crimefighters across the United States and Canada, and has chronicled her experiences in REAL LIFE SUPER HEROES from Dundurn. As anyone who frequents CriticalBlast knows, we have an affinity for the super hero as well as for those who appear publicly in costumes. So we were eager to speak with Ms. Fezzani and dig up a few more answers about the addition of these characters to real life society.

Is the Real Life Super Hero (RLSH) movement a fad, an extension of cosplay, or something larger--a step for societal evolution?

When the solicits came out for March 2017, there were several Marvel books MIA.  This led to a lot of speculation about series being cancelled.  Over the last few days, various creative teams have confirmed the cancellation of several books, and there are rumors of more to come. CAPTAIN MARVEL was one of the books now solicited for March, but series riter Margeret Stohl tweeted out, ""Concerned Citizens: nope Captain Marvel has not been canceled & we are hard at work on all things Carol Danvers even now!"

Confirmed Cancelled:

In the world beyond the brick, LEGO has established itself as a place of creativity, fun, and humor. Now they're taking things a step beyond with their line of books for young readers, "LEGO Adventure in the Real World."

FARM is designated as a Level 1 reader, which translates to a market of K-1st graders, but don't expect this to be a 5-word-per-page standard kid reader. Each page is packed with photographs of farm life, overlaid with cartoon LEGO images cracking wise with traditional LEGO style humor.

The book does more than introduce youngsters to farm animals. It explains at the basic level the daily routines and machinery necessary to run a successful farm, and shows how the many different kinds of farms are important to so many aspects of our lives beyond the dinner table.

From IDW Press Release:

Disclaimer: I want to make it very clear, I am not endorsing this product or any claims made by Unspoil.me.  I am covering this story because it amused me, not because I think it has any credibility.

I stumble across the weirdest things in my journeys across the internet.  Today, that happened to come from a website I've never heard of called IFL Science.  They did a story about something called Unspoil.me, and I just had to talk about it.

There's nothing quite like watching an amazing TV show for the first time. The second time you watch it, however, you're going in with no surprises and the experience is never as good.

Even Hollywood understands that there is just something special about the performance art known as “the musical.” There have been hit musical films almost as long as there have been films, period: The Wizard of Oz, Mary Poppins, Singin’ In The Rain, and most of Elvis Presley’s films involved a fair amount of singing, even if some might not regard them as musicals in the purest sense of the word. Grease was a big hit when I was young, as was The Jazz Singer. Moulin Rouge, Chicago, Hairspray, Les Misérables, La-La Land and others have garnered box office success and award nominations in recent years. This year is no exception as Australian heartthrob Hugh Jackman retires his Wolverine claws and dons a bright red coat with long tails and a dashing top hat for the role of P.T. Barnum in The Greatest Showman.

I actually hadn't even heard of this movie until Disney had posted yesterday "Tomorrow, see the trailer for Disney's The Nutcracker and the Four Realms."  I was curious, so I checked it out.  Still not sure exactly what the movie is about...sort of reminds me of Disney's live action Alice in Wonderland movies.  But it does have some strong cast members with Keira Knightley, Morgan Freeman, and Helen Mirren

From IMDB:

Until January 2 (January 4 in some cases), Comixology has some huge sales going on for a wide variety of digital collections and single issues. 

BTW, if you want to send some gifts this way, my user name is SkitchNM!

Thomas Wolfe once famously said, "You can't go home again."

To which John Stamos has replied, "Hold my beer."

The Tanner family is (mostly) back in the Netflix comedy series, FULLER HOUSE, the continuation of the popular 90s series that was part of the TGIF lineup. (Maybe Jaleel White can get a gig for "More Family Matters" down the road?) In the new series, DJ Tanner-Fuller (CANDACE CAMERON BURE) is a widow with three children, Jackson (MICHAEL CAMPION), Max (ELIAS HARGER) and baby Tommy (DASHIELL & FOX MESSITT). Family patriarch Danny Tanner (BOB SAGET) has moved out to host his television show with Aunt Becky (LORI LOUGHLIN) in San Francisco, and has left the house to DJ.

Welcome back to Critical Blast’s long-running weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week.   Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that.  Let's get to it!

Everyone has their own list. As soon as a new Star Wars movie is released, its success is immediately measured by where it ranks among the others that came before it.

And to say STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI is as divisive as BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE, would be a slight understatement. Not even Mustafar is as fiery as the passion of most Star Wars fans. And when they begin debating the merits of Rian Johnson's entry, much like a Jedi or a Sith, they choose a side and refuse to be tempted by the other.

While Rotten Tomatoes receives a fair amount of criticism from fans, one thing is true: it aggregates the average score of critics and fans alike. So taking that into consideration, let's do the math and find out how the critics rank the Star Wars saga with rating in parathesis:

Editorial cartooning. It's been the hallmark of American politics since before we even signed the Declaration of Independence. It can be on point, humorous, and skewer the opposition just as viciously as any sword. A picture, truly, is worth a thousand words. God bless the First Amendment!

But just because speech is protected from being silenced doesn't mean it's protected from criticism. When Sarah Palin famously put cross-hairs on states that were having elections, urging people to get out and vote, it was seen by many as an advocation of violence. Cross-hairs, after all, were indicative of guns, and guns meant shooting. Thus, it was reasoned that Sarah Palin was calling for violence against the opponents in these states.

I had the good fortune to attend A Charlie Brown Christmas Live on Stage at the Peabody Opera House on December 15, 2017. It’s a live version of the classic Peanuts holiday special, with the script verbatim from the show and the music licensed from the Vince Guaraldi Trio, it was a familiar favorite for young and old alike, and indeed I think there were more adults in the audience strolling down memory lane than there were children.

In case I've never mentioned it before, I'm old. So my playlist doesn't often reach out to include Taylor Swift in its lineup.

That doesn't mean I'm insulated, though. I know who she is, I remember when she was on my country stations...and I'm aware that, for whatever reason, her opinion on politics is highly sought after, and her silence on it seems to be infuriating to the pop culture media HMFICs. Yes, why is a twenty-something pop-star not weighing in on where she stands on matters of international diplomacy or perceived social inequities? How can we move on without knowing this information?