Tag Archives: Vietnam

More thoughts on 21st-century spy shows: Cold War edition

When I wrote about the TV series Slow Horses, last month, I mentioned how one of the departures from the source novels was that the show didn’t take advantage of the potential of sleeper agents to act as metaphors for … Continue reading

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Gotham Calling’s 120 Cold War movies – part 12

We’ve arrived at the end of Gotham Calling’s long-running Cold War cinema retrospective… And if you think depictions of the conflict were winding down in the final years, you’re in for a surprise. This is probably the bloodiest – and … Continue reading

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Gotham Calling’s 120 Cold War movies – part 11

We are now entering the final stage of Gotham Calling’s mega-list of Cold War cinema… and we are firmly in Reaganite territory, including an obsession with foreign intervention along with a vigorous resurgence of nuclear panic. 101. Threads (UK, 1984) … Continue reading

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Gotham Calling’s 120 Cold War movies – part 10

The previous post in Gotham Calling’s tour of Cold War cinema had plenty of films about the conflict’s expansion to the Third World. Today’s installment extends the same motif, but it also gradually engages with one of the consequences of … Continue reading

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Gotham Calling’s 120 Cold War movies – part 9

This is the latest installment of Gotham Calling’s 12-part journey through Cold War cinema (if you’re only joining us now, you can find the previous installments here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). It’s also probably the most … Continue reading

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Spotlight on The Unknown Soldier, 1988-1989 – part 1

At a time when pavlovian pundits and politicians seem keen to revive Cold War rhetoric and imagery, (mis)applying it to the conflict taking place in Ukraine, perhaps it is worth remembering that even during the Cold War itself there were … Continue reading

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Animal war comics – part 2

If you read last week’s post, you know I’ve been discussing war comics that prominently feature animals. This week, let’s start by looking at 2004’s science-gone-wrong mini-series We3, about a trio of weaponized animal cyborgs (a dog, a cat, and … Continue reading

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Animal war comics – part 1

Once again, the folks at Dead Reckoning have sent me one of their graphic novels to review: Four-Fisted Tales: Animals in Combat, in which Ben Towle spotlights the historical role of different creatures in various wars. Like last time, I … Continue reading

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Collected war comics

The folks at Dead Reckoning sent a copy of Garth Ennis’ and Carlos Ezquerra’s The Tankies for me to review, so I figured it would be fun to put the book into context by discussing it together with other collections … Continue reading

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Scars of Vietnam in Gotham City

As an embodiment of changing fads and obsessions of US pop culture, Batman’s adventures could hardly stay immune to the social impact of the Vietnam War. And while the Caped Crusader’s TV incarnation could initially be seen advertising war bonds, … Continue reading

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