Welcome, dear readers, to our regular letter column; a series of missives from and to the internet, delivered by a series of tubes. We welcome your comments and questions. About anything! We’ll answer it, and at least one of us will take you seriously. Maybe.

You can ask questions about comics. You can ask questions about things that aren’t comics. Brandon will probably get scared, but that’s nothing new. He doesn’t like to travel too far out of his comfort zone, and his comfort zone is small, you guys. And it has hot cocoa, and cats, and Danica, and comics, and that’s about it. Oh, and probably bacon. And I guess blankets and clothes and stuff. This metaphor is getting away from me. Was this ever a metaphor? Anyway, you can ask any or all the questions, is what I’m saying.

You’re welcome, internet.

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Matt Bowes (@matt_bowes) asks: “Binge watching”, is this a good development for TV storytelling or not?

Brandon: It can’t hurt things. I know you followed up this question by noting you felt it hurts comedies that you’ve watched, and I’ll admit to that happening with me too - but in very rare instances. For the most part, the comedies I end up sticking with have a strong serial element to them, instead of shows that resemble joke machines, so maybe that’s helping me out. Regardless, I think binge watching is a double edged sword - taking in anything in a high quantity will eventually make you sick, it’s just a matter of how much you can tolerate, and for how long. Play it right, and you create a rabid fan, such as when Danica and I burned through the first two seasons of Once Upon a Time in the span of… three weeks, I think? Now we’re champing at the bit for more.

I should also note that we’re both probably watching more TV shows binge style than anything approaching a weekly schedule these days. The only show we managed to stick with weekly through the end of it’s run this year was Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, which we both really enjoyed - so that might just say more about how we consume media more than anything else.

Anyway. Just over two paragraphs in is a good point to check and see if I answered what you asked, right? I think the current binge culture is causing a few shows to be crafted a bit differently - mainly those that appear on services like Netflix in chunks. I think using the delivery method and the audience’s proclivity to shove all the tv into their faces all at once provides some interesting storytelling challenges that are now being explored, some in more successful ways than others. All in all, I think the results will be positive for television, as it’s going to push it’s boundaries a bit more.

James: …Neither? I’m not trying to be difficult, honest. It’s a neutral development, is all. It certainly has some potential impact on ratings for shows as people hold off on watching something until they can watch an entire season (or series) at once, but unless you’re a Nielsen/BBM Canada household, what you watch doesn’t really matter anyway. There’s also the conflict about spoilers between people who watch (and want to discuss) shows immediately and those who binge watch later, but that’s pretty small potatoes, too. Really, the discussion comes down to whether binge watching is good for the medium, and honestly I don’t think it matters that much.

After all, binge watching isn’t really new. It’s more popular than ever now with online streaming services like Netflix, but it’s been around since home media started. Even before that, networks would schedule on-air marathons to let viewers binge-watch. The only real difference I see now is in the ease and popularity of watching the entirety of a show in a short period of time.

The thing is, I don’t think this ability really damages the storytelling in any significant way. While broadcast TV has often used serialized storytelling with its dramas (comedies and sitcoms usually let episodes exist with much less continuity), I don’t think it’s the actual wait in between episodes or seasons that’s the important part. Obviously, there are some general exceptions - season-ending cliffhangers, most of LOST, etc - where an element of waiting can have a positive effect as the fanbase discusses the cliffhanger or mystery and what they think will happen. But with the already fractured TV viewing market, those water cooler moments are diminished somewhat. Social media like Twitter re-establishes an element of it, but DVRing alone keeps the audience fundamentally fractured. The explosion of original cable content did the same thing before DVRs, too. Simply put, the days of everybody watching something at the same time are gone, and binge-watching is just a small part of that. The serialized storytelling persists.

A big part of that I think is the simple nature that shows themselves are still structured in largely the same way. The serialized nature isn’t in the act of waiting, but in the basic composition. Episodes resolve small conflicts and storylines while seasons see larger ones develop and play out. As long the division of shows into seasons and episodes persists - and they will, because the opposite is basically movies - the storytelling will still fundamentally stay the same.

That said, it’s been interesting seeing the smaller effects that binge-watching has on how shows are made and constructed. Many showrunners have talked about how they build the overall plots slightly differently knowing two things: that a big chunk of the audience will watch the show in a binge later, and that with all the competition now they don’t have 20+ episodes to develop an audience; they have to lock that down in the first couple of weeks. These are generally small adjustments, though: quick start, don’t assume there’s a week between episodes, etc. It’s a big deal for the writers, but not necessarily for the audience who, ideally, shouldn’t really notice anything is different.

The really interesting thing, however, is in some of the content that’s being developed with streaming and binge-watching in mind, like Netflix’s original content, foremost among it the fourth season of Arrested Development. The showrunners of these shows go into the whole thing knowing that people are going to binge-watch, which lets them get ahead of it. Mitch Hurwitz of Arrested Development took this one step further: he preserved the serialized storytelling, but made a radical change to the season structure. Normally, I’d argue the primary consideration in an episode’s structure is the plot, namely getting in the standard act structure in a satisfying way. Character has a problem, struggles, solves. Standard English 101 stuff, really. Hurwitz, however, knew that the fourth season of Arrested Development didn’t really need to concern itself with that as much; its fans were obsessive and would have all the episodes at once. Of course they were going to watch it all in the first day or two, possibly even more than once. What Hurwitz did was ingenious: he structured the entire season with this in mind. Instead of the primary consideration of an episode being the actual plot, he made it the characters’ states, turning each episode into a spotlight that didn’t need to follow a traditional three act structure. Look back at that season: very few, if any, episodes, follow a traditional plot arc. With episodes crossing and folding over themselves and each other, keeping fidelity to a structure would have been a hindrance. The show had long experimented with postmodern structure and self-reference, but the fourth season ran with it. The result was a season of spotlight episodes of different lengths and little consideration of acts, since there weren’t commercials to fit around anyway, with the overall plot and structure taking shape over the entire period of episodes. It was smart and gutsy as hell. Consciously experimental. But it will never be the norm.

Why? We like structures too much. The transgression of breaking the unspoken rules of narrative fiction needs the existence of the rules to break in the first place. Arrested Development‘s fourth season worked specifically because it wasn’t the norm. But the norm, at this point, is a primal part of us. It’s the monomyth, the building bones of fiction. It will grow and change, but it will always be there. Binge watching doesn’t change that fundamental truth that we like patterns just as much as we like the occasional subversion of them. Serialized storytelling has gone through many different forms, but it’s persisted. Netflix has nothing on the weight of human consciousness, tumbling through the millennia, always looking for patterns.

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Josh Bazin (@joshYEG) asks: If all the comic writers were put into the Thunderdome, who would leave?

Brandon: Kelly Sue DeConnick, no question. I mean, it would be tough if Fraction was also there, because I think she’s sweet on him, but let’s just say he and Chip Zdarsky duo- erotically asphyxiate each other or something, and Kelly Sue doesn’t have to make that choice. We might be monsters, but we’re not cruel.

James: Kelly Sue, no question about it. The first time I ever interviewed her, she threatened to gouge out my remaining eye with a spoon. That’s not a joke. That’s a thing she said. There’s a reason I call her “Rampage,” much to her frequent chagrin. Because she is the biggest badass around. She’s the legit best.

Note: her daughter could probably take her, though.

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Josh Bazin (@joshYEG) continues: who’s better at returning my emails? Brandon or James?

Brandon: Me! Considering the fact that I recently replied to you, and I believe James has not.

James: Josh, you have to send me reminders. Otherwise, when my phone deletes the email automatically, I’ll forget about it. I was up playing Mario Kart until three last night. I’m just barely aware of what I’m saying right now. I’m not sure I’m not actually still driving on Rainbow Road. That could be happening right now, who even knows? I’ve gone mad with blue shells.

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Jay Runham (@jayrunham) asks: Best place to start with the X-Men comics?

Brandon: The best recent place to jump in would be the first volume of All New X-Men, which plucks the original X-Men out from the beginning of their formation and drops them into current continuity. Bendis has used it as a brilliant storytelling device that allows new readers to get caught up The X-Men’s crazy past alongside characters who know just as little as they do, while telling new stories for the old readers. It’s pretty brilliant, and the art from Stuart Immonen is great too.

James: Brandon basically nailed it on the head with the All New X-Men run by Bendis and Immonen if you want to start up with current X-Men comics and be caught up to speed pretty quickly. It’s the most recent of the soft resets designed to let new readers jump aboard, and as it gradually works in the other parts of the X-Universe, you should get a good handle on the kind of characters and stuff you like, and start going from there.

If you want to dig in to X-Men comics that aren’t just the current ones, I’ve got a few quick suggestions for things I liked and found pretty easy to jump into:

• X-Men: Season One, by Dennis Hopeless and Jamie McKelvie. If you like seeing the original X-Men in All New, this is a good one to check out. It’s basically a look at the early days of the original X-Men, but told from a modern POV and storytelling approach. It’s got gorgeous art by McKelvie and it captures the sense of youth that the original Lee/Kirby comics didn’t really have. It’s no secret that the original X-Men run is one of their lesser works, and took a giant retooling with Giant Sized X-Men #1 and the introduction of a bunch of new X-Men (like Wolverine, Storm and Nightcrawler) to make the franchise what it is now. One reason the book is one of the pair’s lesser works is arguably because it basically sounds like a middle-aged dude imagining what teens sounded like; Hopeless adapts the same concept (gifted youngsters, world that hates and fears them, etc) with fresh eyes.
• Astonishing X-Men, by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday. This is how I got into the X-Men. I found their continuity confusing (and still do, honestly), but Whedon and Cassaday minimize the amount you need to know while still telling great stories featuring iconic characters. It’s continuity lite and, while its ending would impact the X-Men area of the Marvel Universe for years, it was unbothered by crossovers and worrying what the other X-books were doing at the time. It reads as one long-form story, with gorgeous art and a lot of moments for the characters to look like absolute studs. Cyclops especially!
• New X-Men, by Grant Morrison and several artists, but most prominently Frank Quitely. Now, keep in mind that this should not be your first X-book. Morrison doesn’t skimp on the continuity, but what he and his collaborators were good at was reinventing the state of the franchise with some new characters (like Quentin Quire, introduced here) and some massive plot events. It’s sort of the advanced course for getting into the X-Men, but if you’re patient and don’t try to rush through it, it’ll reward you. It, more or less, made the entire modern state of the X-Men possible.

For other suggestions, Benito Cereno wrote a great guide to jumping into different eras of the X-Men over at ComicsAlliance. You’ll see each and every one of our recommendations there, along with some other great comics.

Some final words: the thing about the X-Men is that they’ve got a convoluted, often confusing continuity. I’ve been reading most of the X-Books for almost a decade and I still have no idea what’s going on with Magik, for example. So don’t expect any jumping-on point to give you all the answers. Bendis and Immonen’s All New X-Men is one of the friendliest introductions you’ll find, but don’t worry or feel bad if you have to supplement it with Wikipedia or asking us more questions. There’s probably about a dozen people around who actually understand entirely what the X-Men are about.

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Scott Williams (@scottowilliams) asks: What is the best signature move in WWE?

Brandon: Do I know the answer to this? I probably don’t. I’m thinking it’s that human swing thing Cesaro does [Ed. Note: the Cesaro Swing, usually known as a Giant Swing]. That thing is boss.

James: I’m a big fan of Cesaro’s entire moveset. He’s agile, he’s strong and he thinks well, and one of the things he’s best at is putting together a sequence of moves that make your jaw drop. He’s excellent at doing amazing German suplexes that don’t require any aid from his opponent (normally, opponents will subtly jump a bit along with the suplex so it’s easier for the offensive wrestler to complete). There’s been at least one time where he launched someone into the air only to give them a European uppercut when they were on the way down that I thought actually, for real, injured them. Finally, there’s the Neutralizer, which is where he shows off his sheer strength. There isn’t a dude around he can’t pick up and slam down with it, which is why it’s his premiere finishing move. But really, you could study what he does for days nonstop and still be impressed.

Some others that I’m really impressed with:

• Daniel Bryan’s running knee: it’s one of the simplest finishers around, but the way he throws his all into it, with his hair and beard flapping as he flies through the air gives it a great visual. It looks like it could murder a dude.
• Roman Reigns’ Superman punch. I mean, come on. He cocks and loads his fist and then jumps through the air to lay a dude out? That’s pure confidence, that move.
• Bray Wyatt’s Sister Abigail, when it’s used as a running reversal. It adds so much momentum and impact and gives it a lot more realism. It’s like how the RKO is the dumbest finishing move in existence when Randy Orton is just standing around with his back to his opponent, waiting for them to hit their mark; in those situations, the move highlights Orton’s limitations in the ring and makes one wonder why the opponent doesn’t just stay standing up instead of letting Randy pull them down. But when it’s a reversal to a move off the ropes, like the Disaster Kick? It looks like a million bucks. The Sister Abigail can look great when Bray’s standing still but only if he plays up the cult-like creepiness of it. But when it’s running? The hottest shit forever.
• Paige’s modified scorpion crosslock (I think she’s calling it the PTO now?) looks amazing. Women wrestlers in the WWE don’t often get to show off their technical competence, but with a class of young women coming up through NXT that were trained by Sara Del Rey, more and more are showing up with great technical chops. The WWE badly needs to improve how it treats women (and basically any non-straight, non-white, non-male, etc demographic), and letting wrestlers like Emma and Paige tap out opponents goes a long way toward jump-starting that. The PTO’s strength, besides being a complicated technical maneuver, is that how incapacitated it makes the opponent look. They’re sitting there, dangling in the air, barely able to tap out because Paige has all their limbs tied up. The PTO makes Paige’s opponents look helpless.
• Final shout-out to AJ’s Black Widow, in particular how she tapped-out Naomi with it at WrestleMania 30. And I mean she tapped Naomi out, because Naomi didn’t technically tap herself; AJ actually picked up one of Naomi’s hands and tapped for her, which is a supreme baller move. AJ Lee, you are my motherfucker.

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Scott Williams (@scottowilliams) asks: What is the best catchphrase in WWE besides “YES!” ?

Brandon: Is it kissing? I bet it’s kissing.

James: Son, you’d best believe it’s any variation of Bo Dallas’ constant requests for people to “BO-LIEVE.” It’s corny and earnest and fun, and the way Bo just leans into it with gusto the entire time is the absolute best. I love how it feeds into his character - Bo really thinks he’s a good guy, but he’s egotistical enough that he constantly interjects his own self-importance front and centre. He can’t help it, and that need to preserve and promote his own ego comes up in other ways, like his use of underhanded tactics in the ring. The “BO-LIEVE” catchphrase is a wonderful little summary of his entire character in that way: he says it’s about you, but it’s really about him.

For some reason, I relate to this.

That’s it for the one hundred and forty-fourth installment of Um, Actually. Check in every Monday and Thursday for a brand new column. If you have anything you’d like answered, hit up our contact page! If you submit anything via Twitter – to @blogaboutcomics, @Leask, or @soupytoasterson – remember to include the hashtag #UMACTUALLY so that we don’t lose it. Remember: you can ask us anything. Seriously, anything.