Now he says otherwise? Or does he?

Fluff-coated propaganda columnist Andrew Smith, writing about the recent SDCC in the Times Record, brings up the Flash TV show's plan to guest star Elongated Man, and he sure doesn't seem enthusiastic about acknowledging what he himself said about a certain miniseries in the past:

Several new faces were announced at San Diego for Season 4 of The CW’s “The Flash,” including Danny Trejo (as Breacher, a bounty hunter from Earth-19), Neil Sandilands (as Clifford “The Thinker” Devoe) and Kim Engelbrecht (as the Mechanic, The Thinker’s aide de camp). But this week brought news of another character coming to the show, one which should have comics fans cheering.

That would be Ralph Dibny, a.k.a. The Elongated Man, played by Hartley Sawyer. In the comics, Dibny was introduced in “Flash” comics in 1960 as a man who was able to stretch his body in ridiculous fashion — think Plastic Man or Mr. Fantastic of the Fantastic Four — and whose nose would twitch comically when he “smelled a mystery.”

Dibny quickly became a frequent guest star in “Flash,” and later starred in a variety of backup strips, eventually becoming a member of the Justice League. His popularity rose to its peak after the introduction of his wife, Sue, in 1961, an heiress whose fortune allowed Dibny the financial freedom to travel the world solving mysteries, like The Saint, while engaging in amusing banter with Sue, akin to Nick and Nora Charles of the Thin Man movies.

Later stories took a darker turn — before the 2011 revamp at DC Comics, both characters were dead — but “Flash” is (or should be) an upbeat show, so it’s likely the Stretchable Sleuth’s camp side will be prominent. There’s no word on Sue yet, but omitting her would be felony TV-writing malpractice, so I expect her to show up.

Interesting he should say that years after he wrote at least 3 hideous columns gushing over Identity Crisis, making light of sexual assault and expressing his belief that the death of Sue Dibny should be permanent. None of which he acknowledges now, nor do I notice any apology for minimizing the harm done by that 2004 abomination. And say, didn't Ralph make his own fortune too, whether as detective or even an entertainer in showbiz? In once instance during the Silver Age, he took Sue to a diner on his tab, and she indicated he had plenty of his own dough. Why does only Sue's fortune matter? Is Smith trying to make Ralph look like a male gold-digger?

Oh, and wasn't turning Jean Loring into a crazed killer with a flamethrower - and later a female Eclipso for the sake of sensationalism - felony comic-writing malpractice at the time? He sure hasn't explained how that's justified either.

Biggest fault with Smith's position is that he's not saying it because he supports it himself, but rather, to promote the TV producers' upcoming story, rather than stress convincingly why Sue and Jean are both worthy storytelling vehicles with the right kind of writing, as is Mary Jane Watson over at Marvel. And, he hasn't said a word about any of the abominable steps taken with any of these ladies over the past years, so it's hard to buy he's saying what he did because he cares. I doubt it.

Mr. Smith also brought up the planned sequel to Deadpool's film, and I honestly don't see what's so great about this:

Speaking of casting news, pandemonium ensued when it was announced that Josh Brolin would join the cast of “Deadpool 2” as the taciturn and grim Cable, a character often associated with the Merc with a Mouth, but who is also Nathan Summers, the time-displaced son of Scott “Cyclops” Summers and Jean “Phoenix” Grey of the X-Men (who is older than both of them). That’s pretty weird, but what’s even weirder is that Brolin is also playing supervillain Thanos in the next two Avengers movies. The boy gets around.

However they characterize Cable here, or apply a background, what's the use when Nathan Summers was not well developed in the comics, and the stories starring him during the 90s were so dull? It's just like the case surrounding a possible Gambit movie - you have a character who was not developed well back in the comics, and while it wasn't his fault either, it still doesn't make him a great idea for movie material, even if writing's improved, which is unlikely at this point. Besides, he wasn't always associated with Deadpool, certainly not during the 90s when he had his own pointless solo book; it was only during the mid-2000s, when their hack writers were desperate for ideas, that they thought of casting the twosome together in a miniseries or ongoing just so they'd have someplace to write a story with them. But writing was so bad by then, I don't see the point.

Besides, if Smith can't acknowledge any of that, then he's not one who's qualified to write about such topics.