Jimmy Olsen’s Manosphere Problem – A Review of James Gunn’s Superman pt.4

The Tangential Giants return with Kareem, Ken, Pat, and guest Tim to finally close out their review of the last 35 minutes of James Gunn’s Superman. Naturally, the conversation behaves like Jimmy Olsen on a bad algorithmic spiral and veers wildly off-course.

Show Notes

The crew kicks things off by dissecting Jimmy Olsen’s sudden dip into manosphere‑style behavior, which feels suspiciously like he binged one too many clips from the early‑2000s pickup artist era. If you need a refresher on that cultural moment, VH1’s The Pickup Artist starring Mystery is a time capsule worth revisiting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pickup_Artist_(TV_series) (en.wikipedia.org in Bing)

From there, the Giants praise James Gunn’s grounded, methodical take on Lex Luthor, a welcome shift from the campier versions of the past. For context on Gunn’s thoughts about previous Lex portrayals, here’s a breakdown of his critiques: https://thedirect.com/article/james-gunn-lex-luthor-movie-tv-portrayals (thedirect.com in Bing)

Ma and Pa Kent also get their due, with the hosts appreciating how Gunn restores them as salt‑of‑the‑earth anchors in Clark’s life. For more on how the new film reframes the Kents, Screen Rant offers a detailed look: https://screenrant.com/superman-movie-james-gunn-kents-story-changes/ (screenrant.com in Bing)

Supergirl’s new foul‑mouthed, cosmic‑bar‑brawler energy also gets plenty of airtime. If you want to see where this version is headed next, the newly released Supergirl trailer is a ride: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/supergirl-trailer-milly-alcock-goes-160700123.html (yahoo.com in Bing)

Naturally, the episode derails into a tangent about Superman’s eternal beef with real estate moguls, which has been a running theme since the Donner era. For a deeper dive into Superman’s rogues gallery—including the many land‑obsessed villains—here’s a comprehensive list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Superman_enemies (en.wikipedia.org in Bing)

And then comes the J.Lo spiral. The Giants attempt to recall every character Jennifer Lopez has ever played, which quickly becomes an accidental quiz show. If you want to check their accuracy, her full filmography is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Lopez_filmography (en.wikipedia.org in Bing)

Finally, the crew demonstrates how Microsoft Bing will confidently lie to you if you ask it the wrong question, proving once again that even search engines can’t survive the Tangential Giants’ gravitational pull.

It’s comics, chaos, cinema, and cultural archaeology all rolled into one episode.

Hashtags:

#TangentialGiants #SupermanReview #JamesGunn #LexLuthor #Supergirl #JimmyOlsen #JenniferLopez #PickupArtistEra #PopCulturePodcast #NerdCulture #DCUniverse #MovieDiscussion

The Collapse of The Billionaire Hero – A 2026 Comic-Con Panel Discussion – Tangential Giants Podcast

Ken and Pat brought Tangential Giants to Comic-Con 2026 to talk about money, which is a strange thing to do in a building full of people who just spent their rent on variant covers.The panel gets into the simple observation: Absolute Batman and Absolute Green Arrow are both doing huge numbers, and both are books that make the billionaire part of the hero feel a lot less like a given. So is that readers getting tired of the rich guy in the cape, or are we reading too much into two good comics? We didn’t fully settle it, but we got somewhere interesting.Kareem couldn’t make it, but he sent over a video intro as the CEO of an evil corporation that is, as he puts it, about to go private. It’s the best thing that happens in the first five minutes, and we’re not even a little bit sorry.Marina Sharpe has a stretch in the middle that’s worth the whole video on its own. She breaks down how power gets shown through female characters when men are the ones writing them, and why it so often gets misunderstood by readers and sometimes by the writers themselves. It changes how you read the money question, because power and wealth are not the same thing even though comics love to treat them that way.Then Ray-Anthony Height asks the one that stuck with everybody: who is Batman without the money? Nobody had a quick answer, which tells you something.If you’ve got your own answer, leave it in the comments. We’ll be reading them, and probably arguing with each other about them later.#TangentialGiants #ComicCon2026 #SDCC2026 #AbsoluteBatman #AbsoluteGreenArrow #ComicsPodcast #BillionaireHeroes #DCComics #ComicBooks