Reunited . . . and It Feels So Good by Steve Ekstrom

Steve Ekstrom joined Best Shots and Shotgun almost simultaneously, covering comics and wrestling.  In addition to writing for Newsarama and elsewhere, Steve's written a number of comics and webcomics that appeared via places like Zuda, Top Shelf 2.0, and Image's Negative Burn.  Today, he addresses a sad time in the history of Shotgun, a time when two contributors decided to try to kill each other online.  No, not that time . . .Most Shotgunners will recall the vicious debates Kevin Huxford and I had regarding our feelings about the One More Day/ Brand New Day outcome and the aneurysm inducing story logic of Post-Civil War era (haha) Spider-Man when he gave Mephisto a good ol’ fashioned “Devil’s Handshake” to save Aunt May.

[Did you know that a “Devil’s Handshake” is slang for an old fashioned handski? But I digress…]

We said a bunch of really explosive clap-trap directed at personally wounding each other and the whole thing devolved pretty quickly away from Spider-Man and good-natured debate. We avoided each other like the plague in mutual friends’ Facebook feeds and went our separate ways. I admittedly took a lot of what was said to heart, pulled my green Dr. Doom cowl close and shook an iron-fisted cry for vengeance into the sky.

And then? I felt really stupid; immature even.


This is what Yeats meant by "terrible beauty".



We Live in Interesting Times . . . For Corporations by Kevin Huxford

Ah, Khuxford. I know that Kevin Huxford of Schwapp Online has been a controversial cat over the years. However, he's also been my friend. Another Best Shots guy that came over to Shotgun, Kevin felt many years ago that he had to split both because he'd become something of a lightning rod. He promptly founded his own blog and enjoyed his gadfly role ever since. One thing that you need to know is that Kevin has a rigid code of principles. And even if you don't agree with it, you should respect it. Today, he takes a hard look at something that affects all of us.
Union membership has waned.

Reality TV, populated by talentless gloryhounds, has supplanted a lot of (openly) scripted entertainment.

The Supreme Court says corporations are entitled to all the rights of personhood.

And the electorate is brainwashed into believing that leaving more money with rich folks and corporations leads to new jobs and trickle down even more than they were in the 80s, it seems.

There's two recent developments where this has become more disturbing to me on a personal level.

Gary Friedrich sued Marvel to try to obtain ownership of Ghost Rider. The merits of his case are, at best, debatable. The Ghost Rider name existed prior to his involvement and testimony says that a lot of editorial direction went into the creation. But there's no doubt he played a significant role in the creation, leading some to believe it would be the right thing for Marvel and/or the studio behind the movie to throw a sum (insignificant to them, but significant to the destitute Friedrich) for his past contributions.

And in come all the folks defending the corporations blindly. The only moral obligation Marvel has is to shareholders (i.e. it is a moral imperative that they maximize profits). If they pay this guy, what about the other contributors? What about cases where it is more difficult to break down contributions? It's not the corporations fault that it's too complicated for them to pay anyone something in consideration of how their past work has now manifested into unforeseen millions of dollars.