NERDS AROUND TOWN
Nerds Around Town: Sandman, Young Justice and Spider Man
Jul 1, 2019, 6:30 am
ART BY JESUS RODRIGUEZ
Born with a comic book in one hand and a remote control in the other, Cory DLG is the talent of Conroe's very own Nerd Thug Radio and Sports. Check out the podcast replay of the FM radio show at www.nerdthugradio.com!
Hey Nerds!
Monday is back! Let's make this week our bitch guys! It's a short week so this should be really easy!
GOOD DEED OF THE DAY
This week is the Fourth of July, get pumped and be excited for people and for this great nation and help people in need. While you're grilling and relaxing and having a great day, remember there are tons of people who don't have it as good as we do and it's not looking great for them. Reach out to them and help them out. #NerdsUnite
YOUNG JUSTICE RETURNS
Today is comic book heavy, tomorrow to the DC App Young Justice: The Outsiders returns. This has been one of the most consistent and entertaining superhero cartoons in recent memory. This show has been an awesome portrayal of some solid superhero combat and great characters and some awesome long form storytelling. The series has also been telling one long form story over these three seasons eventually building into this story about a war with Apokolips and superhuman trafficking. The introduction of the Outsider characters and the story of an undercover super hero team is awesome to watch and I wish more cartoons took this long form storytelling method and took the idea of superheroes as serious as Young Justice has.
SPIDER MAN! SPIDER MAN!
It's debuting here in the states tomorrow after debuting overseas this weekend. Kevin Feige the godfather of all things Marvel Films is saying that this is the proper end to the Marvel Infinity Stones saga or Phases 1 through 3. This film tells the tale of a mourning Peter Parker dealing with a world without Tony Stark and feeling the pressure to become the next Iron Man. From the previews it looks like Happy Hogan is heavily involved in this story as is Nick Fury, in a post snap world. This movie tells the story of what that world looks like now that there are people who were gone from the world for five years come back to a world that's moved on without them, including Spider Man. The Mysterio villain is a great movie character to use as he is the master of Illusions, so there's no telling where this could go. The idea of a multiverse is interesting but let's see if they stay on that path after the reveal of it in the previews, but I think potentially it's a trick.
SAY WHAT?
Netflix made an interesting decision and announced they have picked up the rights to Vertigo's Sandman. Written by Neil Gaiman, this is an incredible tale featuring the story of Morpheus the sandman, who sees the dreams of humans. The series was in the late 80s, early 90s crazy period of DC Comics where they were experimenting with Vertigo Comics and trying to find a way to bring great comic books back to the industry which was suffering from a lack of creativity at the time. Gaiman is one of the most creative and daring writers in comic books and fiction in general, so he sat to work creating one of the most amazing and entertaining series in the Vertigo line. It's translated into more than likely one of the most expensive shows potentially in the history of Netflix. It's been positioned as a movie before and in 1996 it would have been a $100 million cerebral fantasy series, now it'll probably be a $150 million fantasy series instead of a movie. The evolution has been long and winding but now the show is at the place that might be perfect for it after HBO/Time Warner/ATT passed on it due to possible show budgets. This is an interesting development in the streaming wars, as a possible sign that these two could work together against Disney, but that seems unlikely for any real length of time.
NOT THAT YOU ASKED
It's going to be all over TV today, but obviously NBA free agency is going on these next few days and I love it. This is one of those awesome wild times in sports where a bunch of people get a bunch of money from a bunch of teams and there are always several surprises in the mix. In the always disappointing department it's already come out that The Knicks didn't offer Kevin Durant a max contract so he decided to not even meet with them. What are they smoking? The Nets have formed a Big Two and a Half with Kevin Durant actually signing there, Kyrie Irving signing there, Deandre Jordan joining LeVert their surprise stud of the roster. The Bucks gave Kris Middleton a very large contract to keep him in Milwaukee and help the Greek Freak get back to the Eastern Conference Finals. Miami was able to get a trade for Jimmy Butler much to the chagrin of Houston (seriously, ugh!), and now all of a sudden Kwahi might go to the Lakers ruining The Clippers and Toronto's offseasons. Stay tuned and remembered, all the contracts are guaranteed.
Feel free to check out my digital short story The Wilson House or buy a shirt from Side Hustle Ts where some proceeds help people struggling with cancer or listen to Nerd Thug Radio. Thoughts, complaints, events and comments can be sent to corydlg@gmail.com.
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A lockout appears unavoidable! Photo via: Wiki Commons.
Looming over baseball is a likely lockout in December 2026, a possible management push for a salary cap and perhaps lost regular-season games for the first time since 1995.
“No one’s talking about it, but we all know that they’re going to lock us out for it, and then we’re going to miss time,” New York Mets All-Star first baseman Pete Alonso said Monday at the All-Star Game. “We’re definitely going to fight to not have a salary cap and the league’s obviously not going to like that.”
Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred and some owners have cited payroll disparity as a problem, while at the same time MLB is working to address a revenue decline from regional sports networks. Unlike the NFL, NBA and NHL, baseball has never had a salary cap because its players staunchly oppose one.
Despite higher levels of luxury tax that started in 2022, the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets have pushed payrolls to record levels. The last small-market MLB club to win a World Series was the Kansas City Royals in 2015.
After signing outfielder Juan Soto to a record $765 million contract, New York opened this season with an industry-high $326 million payroll, nearly five times Miami’s $69 million, according to Major League Baseball’s figures. Using luxury tax payrolls, based on average annual values that account for future commitments and include benefits, the Dodgers were first at $400 million and on track to owe a record luxury tax of about $151 million — shattering the previous tax record of $103 million set by Los Angeles last year.
“When I talk to the players, I don’t try to convince them that a salary cap system would be a good thing,” Manfred told the Baseball Writers’ Association of America on Tuesday. “I identify a problem in the media business and explain to them that owners need to change to address that problem. I then identify a second problem that we need to work together and that is that there are fans in a lot of our markets who feel like we have a competitive balance problem.”
Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement expires Dec. 1, 2026, and management lockouts have become the norm, which shifts the start of a stoppage to the offseason. During the last negotiations, the sides reached a five-year deal on March 10 after a 99-day lockout, salvaging a 162-game 2022 season.
“A cap is not about a partnership. A cap isn’t about growing the game,” union head Tony Clark said Tuesday. “A cap is about franchise values and profits. ... A salary cap historically has limited contract guarantees associated with it, literally pits one player against another and is often what we share with players as the definitive non-competitive system. It doesn’t reward excellence. It undermines it from an organizational standpoint. That’s why this is not about competitive balance. It’s not about a fair versus not. This is institutionalized collusion.”
The union’s opposition to a cap has paved the way for record-breaking salaries for star players. Soto’s deal is believed to be the richest in pro sports history, eclipsing Shohei Ohtani’s $700 million deal with the Dodgers signed a year earlier. By comparison, the biggest guaranteed contract in the NFL is $250 million for Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen.
Manfred cites that 10% of players earn 72% of salaries.
“I never use the word `salary’ within one of `cap,’” he said. “What I do say to them is in addressing this competitive issue that’s real we should think about whether this system is the perfect system from a players’ perspective.”
A management salary cap proposal could contain a salary floor and a guaranteed percentage of revenue to players. Baseball players have endured nine work stoppages, including a 7 1/2-month strike in 1994-95 that fought off a cap proposal.
Agent Scott Boras likens a cap plan to attracting kids to a “gingerbread house.”
“We’ve heard it for 20 years. It’s almost like the childhood fable,” he said. “This very traditional, same approach is not something that would lead the younger players to the gingerbread house.”