It’s the Court, baby. Two Black Casebook LOCKS OF THE WEEK: 1) Bruce’s acid trip freakout in the labyrinth will be relocated to Arkham and 2) Harvey will take on Lincoln March’s role as the Court’s Manchurian Candidate

After listening to REM exclusively all week: 1. Automatic for the People 2. Lifes Rich Pageant 3. Reckoning 4. Fables of the Reconstruction 5. Document

If Iran does turn out to be our Suez—the moment that signals the terminal decline of the empire—then I think we’ll be seeing an American answer to James Bond soon: a character who doubles as pop cultural therapy for the loss of relevance. And I’ll be shocked if it isn’t Batman

In an era of terminally degraded institutions, I have to admire TMZ recreating American journalism from first principles: task a bunch of nosy sociopaths with stalking the most sensational freaks and wretches in the land—the people who run our government

MR FREEZE

Hauntology, a term popularized by the Black Casebook podcast,

Jennifer Kent has a permanent spot on the Real Ones list. Could have taken any number of big Hollywood jobs after The Babadook and chose to direct an utterly uncompromising movie about the horrors of colonialism instead, possibly torpedoing her career in the process

Bruce being old money also allows him to blend into the background as just another blue blood rich guy who no one would suspect of having any involvement in social matters, much less moonlighting as The Bat. He should be depicted almost like a Kennedy or (more haunted) a member of the Kardashians.

Ben Gvir has no say over Israeli politics he's just a member of parliament, a member of the cabinet, the minister in charge of the national police, and is able to pass discriminatory laws that impose the death penalty onto one group of people on the basis of race. He's basically just the fringe.

Nazis

Bruce Wayne's old money status is vastly more interesting as a way to explain his access and privilege than as a way to explain his toys. He should be playing squash with well-connected snoots who only call him "Wayne." He should know Maris Crane.

Criticism is not a personal platform of moral righteousness, but the process of asking and attempting to answer questions

I don't mean this in any kind of triumphalist way, but the past few years have been a real credit to the notion that evil undoes itself. Turns out self-selecting for the most venal, bloodthirsty, cynical, pig-stupid rulers is not a viable long-term strategy

George C. Scott at the Doctor Strangelove premiere, realizing Kubrick only used the goofy takes.

Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch haters wouldn’t survive five minutes with Matt Murdock #realdemon

La tapa dura es de burgueses, aleja al pueblo de la cultura popular. El cómic en tapa blanda y a precios asequibles, hijos de puta. Y pagando todo lo posible y más a los autores. Todo esto dicho desde el respeto y la tolerancia, por supuesto. Besis.

I see people fretting all the time about how they haven't accomplished as much as they want before a certain age, not realizing that you unlock hidden skill trees as you grow older. In your mid-30s, you can shut down a stupid conversation just by saying "I'm grown."

Dark Patterns foregoes meta discourse about "what Batman means" to tell a psychologically rich story about the obsessive guardian of a hellishly lurid Gotham. Like all great detective stories, the mystery here, to quote Richard Lacayo on The Crying of Lot 49, is the one at the heart of everything.

My $.02 on David Lynch's conservatism or lack thereof

Not to be confused with The Punisher: Cheat Day or The Punisher: One More Can't Hurt, It's Just a Little Treat for Frank, What's So Bad About That?

I don’t think it’s too much to ask that every comic look like this

The end of empire is, counterintuitively, in empire. The ability of a monolithic phantom called America to bomb or throttle anything, its willingness to, is long, slow death of the cumbersome rebel empire of ongoing colonization and slave-labor apologism. And, there was a Batman comic about that.

All the great socialist leaders we all look up to didn’t just post, they got people with guns on their side. Your revulsion towards this idea is Garfield propaganda meme shit. Stop it! We can’t win without SOME of these types!

Call me Batman the way I’m saying “It’s over”

Forgot to post it yesterday on account of the world's on fire, but a listener helpfully reminded me to post the script for the Knightfall episode. I still need to add the usual bells and whistles (and my works consulted), but it's available, un-paywalled, here: www.patreon.com/posts/bonus-...

Hierophant

He sucks, but the Night King might be one of the most significant characters in recent American pop culture. I think Trump, Hegseth, and co. genuinely believed that if they killed Khameini, the entire Iranian state apparatus would shatter instantly like in The Long Night

Watching The Comeback for the first time. The cringe comedy’s answer to Come and See

The music of the Cranberries soothes me like a spooked horse

I accepted a long time ago that I am this person

The, "Casebook Walt" persona dives into the, "darker" and often overlooked, "classic" stories of the, "dark knight".

I'm not saying Orientalism is good. I'm just saying that if you're going to be an Orientalist, you'd better have something like Dune to show for it

Javier Bardem among the realest

The hot new trend with teens is talking like Glorious Godfrey. They call it “going Godfrey Mode”

Sinners presents the music of the African diaspora as basically the Source from The New Gods and that fucking rocks, to me,

Didn’t know there were pro-Palestine redpill guys. I’m sure that’s for less than sincere reasons, but mainstream journalists have to be aware that giving these freaks a better claim to objective reality on this one salient issue undermines their credibility elsewhere

Louis Theroux really does have an ironclad gimmick: what if the world’s most normal man hung out with the most deluded freaks imaginable?

This is why every Black Casebook recording session begins with a banishing ritual

Maybe my favorite screen performance of all time

This could really tie a room together. A steal at twice the price

Every clip I see from the One Piece show looks like one of those "Hollywood is in trouble..." AI posts combined with Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. Aesthetically eldritch. Looking directly at it for extended periods of time will turn you into a Lovecraft protagonist.

Overdue for a rewatch

One genuine difference between Millennials and Gen Z etc. was the prevalence of pop culture history programming—syndicated TV, shows like I Love the ‘80s, etc.—that made me conversant with elders instead of living in a permanent but ever-deteriorating present.

Setting aside the absurdity of assigning traits to enormous, heterogeneous cohorts, the perceived differences between generations are historically contingent. They result from differing material circumstances, not the innate virtues or vices of Boomers or Millennials or Zoomers.