5 Things on a Friday: Attack of the 3-Year Launch Cycle

Kind of a slow news week.  That gave me the chance to talk a little more comics and a bit of Army Football.

Go Army!  Beat Navy!!!

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1. ‘All-new’ Marvel to re-start every comic title at Issue No. 1 (NY Post)

 “It allows us to bring all the cool toys into the same sandbox,” said Axel Alonso, Marvel’s editor-in-chief. “Look for an influx of really fun, new stuff in the Marvel Universe. It could be an artifact of great power. It could be a region….

“We’ve asked [the creative teams] to think big and think fun,” Alonso said. “Maybe a character moved to a new place, has a relationship to someone close to them change or their outlook on life is different.”

This reminds me of the time they launched Marvel NOW!

The most surprising thing here is that the Falcon is still Captain America, and Steve Rogers is still older than dirt.  Beyond that, this teaser is a snapshot of what’s been hot at Marvel lately, both in the comics and at the movies.  

And they've got a dinosaur hunter.  Guess they believe in Jurassic World, too.

This was 2012.
So... every three years, then?

I’d like to see somebody do something new and interesting with the Vision, but unless they’re planning to bring Kurt Busiek back to write Avengers again, I don’t know what the odds of that are.

2. Ryan Fitzpatrick Is Ready to Impress Jets, Even as a Backup (NY Times)

For the second consecutive training camp, the Jets will hold an unofficial quarterback competition — despite knowing who the winner is. Same as last year, that is poised to be Geno Smith, who was never threatened by Michael Vick and has already fended off [Ryan] Fitzpatrick for the right to start Sept. 13 against Cleveland.

It must suck to be a Jets fan.  I liked the Herm Edwards / Chad Pennington Jets, but the team seemed to lose focus when they brought in Favre and let Pennington go, and they’ve never really recovered, though Rex Ryan was at least entertaining.

Really, though, does anybody believe Geno Smith is gonna have a breakout season?

3. Friday Hair Metal: SGT Pepper

Sally and I played this for our kids for the first time on Wednesday, and it blew their little minds.

4. The GOP Contenders Getting the Most Free Exposure from Fox News (Slate)

Thanks to Media Matters, a liberal watchdog (that also moonlights as an unofficial rapid response team for Hillary Clinton), we have a snapshot of exactly which GOP candidates secured the most free airtime on [Fox News] last month. Here’s the full breakdown, with the potential candidates currently among the top ten in RealClearPolitics’ rolling national average in bold:

1. Mike Huckabee: 70 minutes over 7 appearances

2. Rand Paul: 53 minutes over 12 appearances

3. Donald Trump: 51 minutes over 8 appearances

4. Ben Carson: 49 minutes over 6 appearances

5(t). Marco Rubio: 38 minutes over 4 appearances

5(t). Chris Christie: 38 minutes over 4 appearances

7. Carly Fiorina: 36 minutes over 5 appearances

8. Jeb Bush: 29 minutes over 2 appearances

9. Scott Walker: 26 minutes over 4 appearances

10. Rick Santorum: 23 minutes over 5 appearances

11. Lindsey Graham: 15 minutes over 3 appearances

12. Bobby Jindal: 13 minutes over 3 appearances

13(t). Ted Cruz: 13 minutes over 2 appearances

13(t). John Kasich: 13 minutes over 2 appearances

15. George Pataki: 9 minutes over 1 appearance

16. Rick Perry: 0 minutes over 0 appearances

I put this article in here because we’ve not talked about the Republican nomination contest lately, and it’s been pretty interesting.  My sense from the story is that the issue is equal parts who’s making news and who’s willing to sit down with Fox for interviews.  Huckabee, for example, is only running in an effort to keep his media persona alive.  He has no chance of winning, and even within the Christian Right, I think he’s a fringe candidate.  He hasn’t held office in a decade.  However, of all of these guys, he was the closest to the Duggars, and that’s had him all over television defending them.  The same could be said for Donald Trump and Carly Fiorina – and probably for Ben Carson as well.  These are fringe candidates looking to build their personal brands.  I saw an interview with Carson last weekend that all but convinced me that the man would be horrified were he to actually win GOP nomination.

Rand Paul’s candidacy is the polar opposite.  His presence in this race has changed the conversation.  I don’t think he’s going to win – in fact, I don’t think he’s going to get particularly close – but like Bernie Sanders on the left, what he’s saying and the way he’s saying it is forcing a reaction from not just the other candidates but from the party as a whole.  It’s this aspect of the race that makes it so interesting.  For the first time in a long time, the tenor of American politics is changing because the fringe candidates are forcing the party mainstream to consider new and wholly different ways of considering the issues.  That’s what growth looks like in the American political system.

I still think that either Bush or maybe Walker will get the nomination, and that’s why those guys have seen reasonable but not extreme amounts of coverage.  Fox has to cover them, but neither of them have to kiss the network’s behind.

5.  Army Football Update (Hudson Valley.Com)

Senior center Matt Hugenberg, junior cornerback Josh Jenkins, junior linebacker Jeremy Timpf and senior punter Alex Tardieu earned first-team honors on Phil Steele’s preseason all-Independent team…

Senior cornerback Chris Carnegie, senior fullback Matt Giachinta, senior tight end Kelvin White, junior linebacker Andrew King, and junior safety Xavier Moss were named to the second team.

With Navy’s move to the American Athletic Conference for the coming season, there remain exactly three Independents in FBS college football – Army, BYU and Notre Dame.  Notre Dame and BYU combined for twenty-two nominations, and Army had the three players noted above.

Meanwhile, Reception Day is June 29th for the Class of 2019.  That’s important not only because it gives grads the world over a chance to reflect on a true life-changing experience – now covered in real time on Twitter – it’s also our first chance to see how this year’s recruiting class actually turned out.  Unlike civilian universities, West Point cannot announce recruiting commitments prior to their reporting.  This is because Army’s players aren’t just college athletes; they’re also Active Duty soldiers.  As of this writing, all we know is that Army Football has over three-hundred offers out to candidates from around the country.  Some of these will be Prep School offers; others will be for direct-admits.  One player has committed informally via Twitter, but even his is hardly an official announcement.

Rumor has it that Coach Jeff Monken has built Army’s best recruiting in years.  Until R-Day, though, we won’t know for sure exactly what that means.

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That’s all for this week.  Have a good weekend!