Weekly Roundup 06/08/2025

Marvel/DC Crossover, Dimension 20, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

Jun 10, 2025

And we’re back. This is going to be a different type of update then normal, but not by much, just a bit more introspective. See, I took a break for a few reasons. One of them was time. I just didn’t really have the time to dedicate to my writing and I started to lose interest due to being overwhelmed and drained from the amount of work that I was doing. Now don’t get me wrong, I like my daytime job, but writing is my passion so when I think it’s time to hang up the keyboard, it’s time for a break.

The other thing is a problem that plagued me when I was doing the Fake Nerd Podcast. See, I can’t always settle on who or what I do this for. It would be great if I could get to the point where people pay me to see what I write, but is that why I do this? I have less then 30 people subscribed and I would say that I personally know 90% of my subscribers. It can start to feel like an echo chamber and I would like my pieces to expand beyond that echo chamber. I am very grateful to everyone who subscribes to this because it means that you either want to suport me, you’re interested in what I have to say, or both. Either way I’m grateful. But sometimes it starts to get me down that I don’t see any growth here. So when that happens, I need a break. I need to take that break so that I can refocus on what should matter: The writing.

Everyone wishes for success, but I learned that it shouldn’t be the reason why you do something. Sometimes I forget that and need to relearn it. So here we are again.

So there’s still going to be plenty of things to say here but I’m not going to do a massive catch-up of the things I did while I was gone. Instead I’m going to focus on the big things two at a time until I’m caught up.

So feel free to skip to anything you want.

What am I working on/Thoughts on that work
A New Marvel/DC Crossover
Weekly roundup
- Dimension 20: Battle at the Bowl
- Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Four new pieces are now on Substack

What Am I Working On?

I will be finishing my Indiana Jones pieces soon. I know I have three left but I wanted to work on some more fun and easier pieces before I get back to them. Part of this is because I wasn’t liking how the Holy Grail piece was turning out and I feel like it could be better and more in line with the Mythellaneous theme. Often time’s when I get stuck on a piece, I need to move on to something “easier.” If I don’t then I just get into a rut.

I’ve got a few pieces written in my notebook already. Mostly focused on the Predator franchise. I’d also like to do a ranking of them, but I have a few rankings I would like to write so we’ll see if I get to it before November. I’ve also got some Doctor Who and Star Trek pieces I would like to finish soon. Even a little How to Train Your Dragon piece is in my notebook.

We’ve all heard the phrase “writing is rewriting” and that feels pretty apt for me. Since I can’t take my computer with me where ever I go, I like to write in a notebook that I take most places. Just unfiltered thoughts and ideas. A lot like the kind of things I write in my newsletters. Then I’ll transcribe them to the computer where I’ll refine them until they’re the pieces you see published here or on Atomic Geekdom. Unfortunately, if I don’t find time to get them on the computer, then they end up just sitting there. I probably wouldn’t surprise anyone when I say that there are a number of pieces in my notebook that will never be finished because of how long they were in there.

Weekly Musings

Marvel and DC's next comic crossover revealed: Deadpool and Batman

Both Marvel and DC said they were going to do a new crossover this year and they finally officially announced what that crossover is going to be. So fun fact about me is that I have every Marvel/DC crossover comic. I wish they would republish them in more affordable options, but I get that it’s hard. This actually leads to a current issue that I have with Marvel: They release to many Omnibus’ now. But I digress.

I’ve been looking forward to what they would do with this crossover, I mean who wouldn’t? It’s about damn time. But there’s something kind of boring about this one and it’s crazy to me that this announcement landed with such a thud on the internet. It’s purly because it’s Deadpool meets Batman though. I think any other crossover would have been met with more excitement. But pairing Deadpool up with another straight man character just feels boring. Marvel is already publishing two Deadpool team-up books right now so he feels a bit overplayed. But I get that it’s their most popular characters meeting. It’s still pretty historic.

Now all that said, I think there’s good creative teams on these books. The Marvel one-shot is being done by Zeb Wells and Greg Capullo, the latter of which is an artist I love. The DC one teams up my favorite creative team for the first time since the last Klaus one-shot: Grant Morrison and Dan Mora. I can’t say “no” to anything those two do together. Morrison is one of my favorite writers and Mora is one of my favorite artists. As much as I don’t care about Deadpool teaming up with Batman, I care very much about Morrison and Mora back together.

Next week I’ll probably talk about either the latest Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 trailer or the reveal trailer for 007 First Light

Weekly Roundup

Dimension 20: Battle at the Bowl

I basically got my birthday present in June instead of November. My partner was wonderful enough to get us tickets to go see the cast of Dimension 20 at the Hollywood Bowl. I was so excited to see they were doing a show somewhere that I could go and since I got into Dimension 20, I’ve wanted to see them live. It was my all time favorite thing I’ve done all year and will likely not be beat.

If you don’t know what Dimension 20 is, then I’m not sure why you’re still reading. Basically I got to watch a bunch of comedians play Dungeons and Dragons.

Something I lamented from Fantasy High Junior Year was that Lou’s character Fabian didn’t get to go up against his arch nemesis, Chungle Down Bim. I was dying to see that face off so when they announced that that would be the plot of a live show at the Hollywood Bowl, I had to go. I’m so eternally grateful that I had the chance to go. It was incredibly funny and everything I wanted it to be. Honestly even more then I expected it to be too. The audience even had the oppotunity to roll with the players. The whole thing was sureal.

This is a showdown you won’t want to miss so if you’re a fan of Fantasy High, watch this when it drops on streaming in a few months.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

So, you all know by now that I’m a major Indiana Jones fan. I was really looking forward to this game and I’m so glad to say that it exceeded all my expectations. Being a video game, the story is able to have a more massive scale then what you would have seen in the films at the time, but it still feels like a quintisential Indy story.

I really enjoyed the connections to Raiders and Last Crusade with the references to Marian and not working at Marshal College anymore. The game organically fills in the time between the two movies without overstuffing it with fan service. But the real standout are the new characters that Indy meets on his adventure. Especially Gina, who I found to be a really great and compelling new character to the franchise. Her story and relationship with Indy really worked for me.

The maps were all so much fun to explore and beautifully rendered. I also really appreciated how little it relied on combat. Even though I prefer games where you shoot first and ask questions later, I prefered to stealth my way through this game. It felt more Indy to me to do so. I used disguises whenever I could and made sure not to use a gun unless I really needed to. The final level of the game is when I really decided to go in guns blazing. The challenge for me was always that Indiana only has a revolver, and his enemies are better armed then him. So the question always became, “how do I avoid getting shot for as long as possible?” It led me to some fun gameplay moments and places to explore that I wouldn’t have found otherwise. There’s also some incredible set pieces that really give you the feeling of being on a classic Indiana Jones adventure.

The interesting thing about the game is how the McGuffin is really a concept, rather then a thing. There is a thing that gets found in relation to the Great Circle, but the Nazi’s are really just looking to use the power that the Great Cirlce represents, and Indy is trying to uncover the secrets and stop the Nazi’s. In doing so, he finds the Nephillim order, which are giants that are decended from angels.

I’ve often questioned with God exists in the Indiana Jones franchise because the Ark and the Holy Grail are meant to be divine. But the movies tend to keep the origin of the powers vague. Never choosing to give a difinitive answer. One of the reasons why I find Crystal Skull frustrating is that it gives a difinitive answer. But this game once again pits Indiana against the divine might of God and seems to difinitively answerthe question. Yes, God does exist in the Indiana Jones universe. I might be reading to much into that, but that’s the kind of person I am. Special shout out to Tony Todd who was great in the game.

I would like to do some research on the history of the Great Circle. It’s a theory that I’ve heard before and this game made me interested in looking at the origins of it.

Something that expanded Indiana Jones media gets wrong is the character of Indy. They get the macho adventurer, but they never get the excited history nerd. That’s where this games biggest strenght is for me. I’ve been saying that they have created a 95% accurate Indiana Jones and that’s only because I can hear Troy Baker’s voice when he talks. I would have loved A.J. LoCascio, who played Han Solo in Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, as Indiana Jones because I think he does the best Harrison Ford impression, but Baker did a very good job of embodying the character. The voice just wasn’t always there for me. Frankly, if that’s my only problem with the game then that’s a miracle. He was able to play every aspect of Indiana, forming the complete picture of the character that you could only get from Harrison Ford.

Something else that I really liked about the game was how overt it was in its portrail of the two fascist regimes in the game. Obviously Indiana goes up against Nazi’s in three of the five movies, but the movie doesn’t try to much in the way of overt political comentary besides “Nazi’s are bad.” But there were moments in the game, especially in regards to the villain Voss that surprised me. Voss talks about the fragility of the “masculine man” when talking about another Nazi and I just appreciated that the game took it’s longer run time to add those moments.

I know there’s a DLC coming in September but I hope that Machine Games gets to do another Indiana Jones game because I would really love to go back into the Indiana Jones world they created. The characters, the world, the humor, the adventure, it’s all there. Everything you’d expect to see in an Indiana Jones story. More importantly then all of that, the game makes you feel like you’re Indiana Jones.