In the comments to these weekly posts (and only these posts), it's your chance to go as off topic as you like.

Talk about non-comics stuff, thread derail, and just generally chat among yourselves.

The intent of these posts is to chat and have some fun and, sure, vent a little as required. Reasoned debate is fine, as always, but if you have to ask if something is going over the line, think carefully before posting please.

Normal board rules about conduct and behaviour still apply, of course.

It's been suggested that, if discussing spoilers for recent media events, it might be advisable to consider using the rot13 method to prevent other members seeing spoilers in passing.

The world situation is the world situation. If you're following the news, you know it as much as I do, if you're not, then there are better sources than scans_daily. But please, no doomscrolling, for your own sake.

The Winter Olympics are underway in Italy.

Alongside the usual magnificent achievements, there was also controversy caused by Gus Kenworthy, a British skiier, though one who was raised in America and had competed for the USA in the past, leaving a less than subtle message about his about American current affairs. Aside from everything else, I admire his calligraphy in a challenging medium.

The Superbowl happened, but being neither American nor a sportsperson, I can't get worked up about the game and can only point you to the half time show with Bad Bunny (Which annoyed all the right people, especially when you read the disaster which was the "alternate" half time show with Kid Rock), and the movie trailers)

The Madalorian and Grogu got one which was more... vibes than anything else, though the voiceover did seem like it was about to recommend some sort of old fashioned farm product, possibly cheese or cured meats.

Supergirl featured an adorable cameo by everyone's favourite superdog as a puppy. As an aside DC are also sponsoring puppies for training as guide and service dogs, always a worthy cause IMHO, and the first puppies are appropriately named: Krypto, Clark, Kara, Lois and umm... Lobo?

"Star Trek: Starfleet Academy" told a story about what did, or did not, happen to Benjamin Sisko, in a sort of love letter to DS9 as SAM the photonic life form tried to find out more. The pacing and some of the story choices felt weird to me, even whilst acknowledging I am probably not a target demographic anymore. However, for a couple of the surprises we got, I'll forgive it a lot.

And in slightly on topic news, Jay and Miles of the long running XplaintheXmen podcast have announced the series will end at some point during this coming year. They will cover the Grant Morrison as their finale. As a longtime fan and commentator there, I will miss them, but am glad they are going out on their own terms, and on a run I've been looking forward to them covering (though I will miss them covering the Chuck Austen run, which I suspect would have been... entertaining)

Also, for those who are interested, they have provided some basic resources for those looking to get more involved in local activism (directly, or supporting) in their most recent post.

And adding in Sir Ian McKellen's magnificent recitation of lines attributed to Shakespeare from "Sir Thomas More", on the subject of the treatment of immigrants, which shows that some things never change.