Hines Ward is Joining NBC's Football Night in America Pre-Game Show

Two-time Super Bowl champion Hines Ward, formerly of the Pittsburgh Steelers, now retired, will be joining NBC's Football Night in America pre-game show for Sunday Night Football as an analyst. Ward worked part-time for NBC a few months ago for their Super Bowl XLVI coverage and received favorable reviews. He was widely expected to join ESPN and become the latest football player to be one of thousands working for ESPN, but instead he is now part of a small group of employees working for NBC.


I think the move is fantastic. Ward is well known for his infectious smile and charisma, something hat will surely translate to television analyst very well, the same way Chris Webber has become a fan favorite on TNT and NBA TV due to his every-man approach to NBA analysis. Ward will join former Chargers and Patriots player Rodney Harrison (ret. 2008) in the studio every Sunday night.

The Golden Age Green Lantern is DC's New Gay Superhero

The Golden Age Green Lantern, Alan Scott

The original Green Lantern, Alan Scott, who used a magic ring unrelated to the Green Lantern Corps. and is magical in nature with a weakness against wood, will be re-introduced in Earth 2 #2 as a gay character. In the old days, when the Golden Age superheroes were introduced to the fused universe of New Earth, Scott had 2 children, Jade, who later became a Green Lantern, and Obsidian, a superhero with shadow-based powers who was also gay, much to the disappointment of his father.


With Earth 2 getting its own revamp, the Golden Age superheroes will be getting reboot as well, with their ages returned to being young. They will also be getting new costumes and origins, which will offer a whole host of new superheroes for DC to work with and do basically whatever they want with them because they aren't the mainstream heroes  and some people may not be into the concept of Earth 2 anyway, thinking "why would I want to read about an alternate universe if these characters won't interact with the main universe?" If Power Girl and Huntress are any indication though, it looks like it will be possible for old-school Earth 1 meets Earth 2 superhero type moments, but DC will be doing a much better job of categorizing their infinite Earths thanks to much better data entry/storage today compared to the 1980s. The cover of Earth 2 #3 will tell the tale of Alan Scott's new origin story and features a partial view of his new costume.

The New 52 Alan Scott of Earth 2. He's also gay.

The Fix May or May Not Be In

The winner of the NBA Draft Lottery, and 100000% likely team to pick Kentucky freshman Anthony Davis with the #1 overall pick will be....


After the Break.

The Dark Knight Rises is Almost Here, New TV Spots Casually Reveal New Details

The first The Dark Knight Rises TV spots have aired and they all casually reveal new details unseen in the theatrical trailers. Here's the new info!

• Catwoman pretends to be Bruce Wayne's wife to steal his Lamborghini Murcielago after the party where she and Wayne dance. Wayne voices credulousness that he even has a wife, confirming he's still a bachelor.
• It is confirmed that Batman retired after the events of The Dark Knight.
• Bruce Wayne now uses a cane. There was wild internet speculation that he would use a cane as a result of his fall at the end of The Dark Knight, but it appears to be fact now.

The "Bruce Wayne has a cane now" angle is very important because someone claimed to have full details on the entire film, posting several potential spoilers, including Wayne using a cane. If his other spoilers end up being fact, I'm not opposed to how the film turns out, including a major role for police officer John Blake.

So DC Comics is Going to Add Yet Another Gay Character

As part of the "Second Wave" of titles in the New 52 to replace the cancelled titles, DC will be re-introducing an old character as a homosexual when they were previously straight. There is no word as to the gender of this character, nor how popular they were in the old DC Universe. I think this is a mistake. DC (and comics in general) doesn't have the greatest track record in its treatment of gay characters, the most notable exception being Batwoman, although she has largely been handled by the same people since she was introduced a few years ago. For those not in the know, Batwoman is handled very interestingly because as her secret identity of Kate Kane, she is a publicly out lesbian, kicked out of the military for its Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. As Batwoman, she purposely exudes sex and flirts with her enemies, despite the fact she isn't attracted to any of them.

That's one example out of all the gay characters that exist and have existed in DC Comics. Marvel's treatment is slightly better, what with Northstar recently getting married to his longtime boyfriend finally, but at the same time, Marvel also employed Orson Scott Card to write Ultimate Iron-Man stories. Card, most famous for writing Ender's Game and its sequels, is also known for being unbelievably homophobic and for making very incendiary comments about homosexuals.

The internet has been stupidly assuming that Batman is going to come out of the closet, but it must be remembered that the gay character will one that is not being featured in comics right now, although it is said that they are an "iconic" character, whatever that means. The entire Justice League has been introduced already, so who else could they add? Power Girl and Huntress have recently been reintroduced to the DC Universe, and I suppose it's possible to make Kara Zor-El or Helena Wayne a lesbian, but I don't see the purpose in that.

If you want to have a good read of gay characters in comics and their fates, I recommend you read WHO CARES ABOUT THE DEATH OF A GAY SUPERHERO ANYWAY?: A HISTORY OF GAYS IN COMIC BOOKS, by Perry Moore, author of Hero, a novel about a gay teen who becomes a superhero.

Sunday Night Football is the Highest Rated Primetime Program in America

This news is shocking for so many reasons. For starters, American Idol is no longer the most watched program in America for the first time in 8 years, after years of an increasingly blander format targeted towards teenage girls who refuse to vote for female talent. Secondly, the most watched program that replaces American Idol is not a drama program or a comedy, but a sports broadcast. It beat out NCIS, Dancing with the Stars, The Voice, Two and a Half Men, among many other shows. Thirdly, it doesn't even air a full "season" of shows, airing 18 regular season games, 2 wild card playoff games, and the Super Bowl, which was not accounted for in the ratings, all without a break that most TV shows have.


Sunday Night Football is without a doubt the gold standard in football broadcasts. The NFL on Fox and The NFL on CBS are both ok, with Fox being much better overall, but neither come close to NBC's coverage. Monday Night Football on ESPN is pretty bad all-around, although with the departure of Ron Jaworski, the show might improve in quality with less inane banter. Thursday Night Football on NFL Network is underrated with a great crew, which hopefully get more notoriety this season as more carriers will have the network at no additional cost and with more exposure thanks to all 32 teams having primetime games thanks to NFL Network.


This season figures to have great ratings for SNF, with an incredible slate of games. Here's their full schedule for a refresher, with subplots included:

1. Dallas Cowboys vs New York Giants, NFC East Rivalry
2. Pittsburgh Steelers vs Denver Broncos, Peyton Manning's Debut as a Bronco
3. Detroit Lions vs San Francisco 49ers, Rematch of "The Handshake" from last year
4. New England Patriots vs Baltimore Ravens, Rematch of 2012 AFC Championship
5. New York Giants vs Philadelphia Eagles, NFC East Rivalry
6. San Diego Chargers vs New Orleans Saints, Drew Brees faces former team
7. Green Bay Packers vs Houston Texans
8. Pittsburgh Steelers vs Cincinnati Bengals, AFC North Rivalry
9. New Orleans Saints vs Denver Broncos, Brees vs Manning SB XLIV Rematch
10. Dallas Cowboys vs Atlanta Falcons
11. Houston Texans vs Chicago Bears
12. Baltimore Ravens vs Pittsburgh Steelers, AFC North Rivalry
13. New England Patriots vs New York Jets, AFC East Rivalry & Thanksgiving
14. Green Bay Packers vs New York Giants, Rematch of NFC Divisional Playoffs
15. Philadelphia Eagles vs Dallas Cowboys, NFC East Rivalry
16. Detroit Lions vs Green Bay Packers, NFC North Rivalry
17. San Francisco 49ers vs New England Patriots
18. San Diego Chargers vs New York Jets

I have a strong feeling Sunday Night Football will repeat as the most watched program in America next season.

So I Guess the Magic are Done.

I'm slow reporting this news because it took some time to analyze this. The Orlando Magic have fired coach Stan Van Gundy and general manager Otis Smith. SVG and Smith are responsible for assembling a team with the 4th highest winning percentage of the last 5 years, including an appearance in the NBA Finals 3 years ago, where they lost in 5 games to the Lakers. Dwight Howard reportedly wanted both men gone on condition of his staying in Orlando at the end of his contract and re-signing, but the latest reports from inside Howard's camp say that he still wants out, most likely because the Magic organization has made no effort to assemble a proper team around him. The Magic's loss in the NBA Finals can be directly pointed at SVG's insistence on playing the injured Jameer Nelson over Courtney Lee and Rafer Alston who had been instrumental in leading the team to the Finals, as well as refusal to double-team Kobe Bryant, a move that is seen as a no-brainer by the other 29 coaches in the league.


After the Finals loss, Otis Smith either traded away or did not re-sign every role player that got them to the Finals, including trading away Dwight Howard's backup center, Marcin Gortat and obtaining the incredibly questionable players Vince Carter and Gilbert Arenas. Since losing the NBA Finals, the Magics' strategy seemed to be assembling a 12-man rotation made up of Dwight Howard and 11 3-point shooters. The experiment has continued to fail, notoriously after Howard went down with a herniated disc before the playoffs this year.


If Dwight isn't satisfied with this, nothing will satisfy him. Although SVG isn't a great coach, there aren't many coaches out there with stellar resumes as free agents. Mike D'Antoni has become notorious as a coach who can't teach defense or command respect, and although Jerry Sloan has expressed interest in coaching the Magic, my gut says that he will coach the Bobcats as a favor to his friend, Michael Jordan. ESPN continues to talk nonsense that Phil Jackson will coach the Knicks, which I find hilarious since they are now in the final stages of signing Mike Woodson to a contract to remove the interim label on his head coaching position, but I bet ESPN will find some way to talk about how Phil will coach the Magic, because that's totally an ideal situation.


There is one coach out there that I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned, Don Nelson, the winningest coach in NBA history and infamous for his ability to handle volatile personalities. He isn't retired, the Warriors decided to fire him when they changed owners and no team has decided to pick him up yet.