Podcasts about superhero ethics

Star Wars Generations is going on hiatus for a few months. We'll be back in December to get you ramped up for Ahsoka Season 2! **************************************************************************This episode is a production of Star Wars Generations, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Superhero Ethics.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailTo learn more about co-host Erin and her incredible cosplay: Instagram · TikTokJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

“Lanterns” so far is more cop drama than cosmic weirdness, and comic book historian Jessica Plummer isn't convinced the trade was worth it. She joins Matthew Fox to dig into the first two episodes of HBO Max's new John Stewart and Hal Jordan series, working through what an adaptation owes its source material and where reinterpretation turns into replacement.They get into the show's stripped-down approach to Green constructs, John Stewart's rewritten comics backstory, and why the human sheriff might be the character worth rooting. Is this really a Green Lantern story, or just a good show wearing the name?Full show notes and resourcesConnect with Jessica Plummer: Website**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Superhero Ethics, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Star Wars Generations.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

Should a beloved story get a sequel twenty years later, and does anyone actually want it? Matthew Fox and Paul Hoppe take on Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender, the new Avatar Studios movie picking up with a grown-up Team Avatar, and neither host walked away loving it. They dig into what makes a "midquel" so hard to pull off, why aging up characters from a beloved kids' show is trickier than it looks, and who a movie like this is actually made for.Paul frames it as a simple question: who was this made for? Matthew traces it to Legend of Korra and a storyline the show never fully resolved. They get into the business side, voice casting, and animation too, and why this is nowhere near as bad as the 2010 live-action disaster, even if it's still not the story either of them wanted. So was this worth making, or just another trip back to a well-loved well?Full show notes and resources**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Superhero Ethics, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Star Wars Generations.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

Thanos says he “had to” sacrifice Gamora. Vader tells Luke it's too late to turn back. Professional poker player Paul Hoppe joins Matthew Fox to dig into the sunk cost fallacy, the bias that convinces us that because we've already paid a price, we have to keep paying it, and to test that idea against real poker hands as much as comic book ones.They trace “don't throw good money after bad” out of the casino and into relationships people stay in too long, then out further still, into the Pentagon Papers and a naval arms race that helped start World War One. Running through most of it is the same reason people won't budge: the fear of hearing “I told you so.” Is staying the course ever actually the right call? Paul and Matthew push back on their own thesis before they're done.Full show notes and resourcesGet Paul's book, “Friday Night Is My Monday Morning, Volume One” (40% off with code SHE400): ZenMadman.com**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Superhero Ethics, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Star Wars Generations.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

Would you give up your name to save your life, if a tyrant demanded it first? Matthew Fox and Erin McGowan open Star Wars Generations' new episode-by-episode watch-through of Star Wars: Visions Presents – The Ninth Jedi with exactly that question, then dig into the animated premiere: a girl named Kara hunting for her captured father, and a warlord named Nawaam commanding an army behind a lightsaber that stubbornly refuses to turn red.Matthew argues the show undercuts its own premise by introducing Jedi-trained fighters too soon, while Erin pushes back that the scarcity was always about lost lightsabers, not lost Jedi. They also dig into whether Nawaam genuinely believes he's still the hero, and whether Kara's father is really collaborating with his captors or playing a longer game. If a blade that's supposed to expose evil won't turn red for a tyrant, what does that make him?Full show notes and resources**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Star Wars Generations, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Superhero Ethics.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailTo learn more about co-host Erin and her incredible cosplay: Instagram · TikTokJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

What if the hero afraid of his own power is exactly what makes it easy to fear an entire population? Matthew Fox is joined by returning guests Will Freeland and Steve Stormoen of the “Hype Is My Superpower” podcast to dig into “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” Peter's uneasy partnership with the Punisher, and how Bruce Banner's fear of himself ends up doing quiet work in the movie's X-Men subplot.The three trace comic references straight out of “Civil War,” “Ultimate Comics,” and the original “Brand New Day” storyline, argue about whether Jean Grey finally gets to be a character instead of a plot device, and dig into a scene where MJ takes back the agency Peter tried to take from her. Lastly, they get into whether we should evaluate this movie on its own or as the last MCU release before “Avengers: Doomsday.”Full show notes and resourcesConnect with Will Freeland: Twitch · Instagram**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Superhero Ethics, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Star Wars Generations.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is here, and The Film Board is spoiling all of it. Pete Wright, Tommy Metz III, Steve Sarmento, Justin Jaeger, Ocean Murff, and Matthew Fox debate spider puberty, the Jean Grey of it all, whether Peter Parker is secretly the villain of his own franchise, and one very bad post-credits scene. Full spoilers. Ratings from 3.5 stars to a full five.Links & NotesThe film. Rate it with us on Letterboxd, and follow The Next Reel while you're there.Where the title comes from. "One More Day" ran from late 2007 into 2008 and ended with Peter trading his marriage to Mephisto in The Amazing Spider-Man #545, by J. Michael Straczynski and Joe Quesada. "Brand New Day" picks up the very next month in #546, with Steve McNiven on art and Dan Slott kicking off a run that lasted a hundred issues.Frank Castle's first appearance. The Amazing Spider-Man #129, February 1974, by Gerry Conway, Ross Andru, and John Romita Sr. The Jackal hires him to kill Spider-Man. Marvel's own Punisher reading guide starts in the same place.Where we've been on this beat. Spider-Man: No Way Home is the spell that started all of this. Into the Spider-Verseand Across the Spider-Verse are the films Matthew still thinks are the best of the bunch. Thunderbolts* is where Yelena and the mental-health throughline come from. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is Cretton's first MCU outing and where Banner's inhibitor turns up. Captain America: Civil War is Peter's introduction, and the moment Matthew says this movie finally rhymes with. Captain America: Brave New World is the Harrison Ford cherry-orchard fight Tommy holds up as the opposite of good stunt work. Deadpool & Wolverine is the last time Fox mutants crossed this street. Avengers: Endgame held the opening-day record until Friday.Tommy's joke, explained. Yes, we really did an episode on The Finest Hours.And last month. The Odyssey • Nolan Points the Whole Machine at Homer — the other Tom Holland movie in theaters right now, and the one Tommy pairs this with.Referenced on the show. The Punisher: One Last Kill, the Disney+ special Steve watched for homework and Ocean advises against. Legion, Noah Hawley's FX series, which Tommy credits for making Jean Grey's power set legible to him. Fallen (1998), his touchstone for the body-hopping possession relay. X-Men: The Last Stand, the mutant cure Ocean invokes when he describes Peter's suppression device. Wonder Man, Cretton's Disney+ series, which Pete would like everyone to appreciate — and which really did get canceled after one season. Marvel's Spider-Man 2, where Sony dropped the Fresh Start suit as a free update three days before release.The rest of the family. The Next Reel with Andy Nelson and Pete Wright. Sitting in the Dark with Tommy, Kynan Dias, Chelsea Stardust, and Pete. Cinema Scope with Andy Nelson. Movies We Like. All five under The Next Reel Family of Film Shows.More from this panel. The Ethical Panda, home of Superhero Ethics and Star Wars Generations. The Adrian Moment. Marvel Movie Minute. Make Me a Nerd with Mandy Kaplan.Support the show. Become a member for $5 a month or $55 a year and get every episode early and ad-free, plus member bonus episodes across all five film shows. Come argue with us in the TruStory FM Discord. Support The Next Reel Family of Film Shows:Become a member for just $5/month or $55/yearJoin our Discord community of movie loversThe Next Reel Family of Film Shows:Cinema Scope: Bridging Genres, Subgenres, and MovementsThe Film BoardMovies We LikeThe Next ReelSitting in the DarkConnect With Us:Main Site: WebMovie Platforms: Letterboxd | FlickchartSocial Media:

Can lightsabers work like mood rings for your soul? Matthew Fox and Erin McGowan get listeners ready for "Star Wars: Visions Presents - The Ninth Jedi," the new eight episode series expanding two existing Visions shorts about a girl named Kara, her captured father, and lightsabers that change color depending on who's holding them. They break down both shorts scene by scene, plus read written thoughts from absent co-host Alex Kormann.Erin makes the case that these lightsabers track a person's pull toward the dark side almost in real time, while Matthew connects the droid Teto's advice about admitting failure to Yoda's line from "The Last Jedi." They also debate how much a story needs to fit official canon to still feel like real Star Wars, and end with a theory about who else from the galaxy's past might turn up a thousand years later.Full show notes and resources**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Star Wars Generations, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Superhero Ethics.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailTo learn more about co-host Erin and her incredible cosplay: Instagram · TikTokJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

What actually separates a poker player from a gambler? Professional poker player, coach, and writer Paul Hoppe steps in as Matthew Fox's full co-host and the two spend this episode arguing over wagers, variance, and self-control at the table before turning it into a lens for superhero risk-taking.They dig into Nick Fury's bet on New York, Kingpin's long-shot gamble in the Spider-Verse, and a decades-long discussion between Matthew and Paul about variance that stretches all the way to how people misread election polling. So: is poker just gambling with better math, or something else entirely?Full show notes and resourcesGrab Paul's book: Friday Night Is My Monday Morning, Volume One. Use that link to get a significant discount and help support the podcast at the same time.**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Superhero Ethics, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Star Wars Generations.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

What happens once a society finds a way to turn a human body into an energy source, and decides that's a good deal? Podcaster and TruStory FM co-founder Pete Wright joins Matthew and Paul to talk about “Lattice,” his debut science fiction novella, and the death penalty, corporate power, and family loyalty questions Wright built into its plot from the very first chapter.Wright talks about writing the book's bones as a teenager and only now finishing it, while Matthew and Paul push on why the story never lets its villains twirl a mustache, they just sign off in a procurement meeting. They get into the Kobayashi Maru, the Batman choice, and a death penalty scene with no last-second rescue. What does it cost a person to have power and refuse to use it?Full show notes and resourcesConnect with Pete Wright: Website**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Superhero Ethics, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Star Wars Generations.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

What happens when the people who raised you decide you're guilty before you get a chance to prove otherwise? Matthew and Erin spend this episode of Star Wars Generations on one of “The Clone Wars”' most consequential stretches, season five's “Sabotage” through “The Wrong Jedi,” where Ahsoka Tano is framed for bombing the Jedi Temple, expelled from the Order, and left to clear her own name while the people who trained her hesitate to have her back.They get into why the Jedi's rigid rulebook makes the whole system brittle, and how Barriss Offee's betrayal lands differently than Pong Krell's ever did. Ventress and Ahsoka's unlikely alliance gets airtime too, along with a devastating Padawan braid scene and a theory about how much Palpatine actually orchestrated. So why didn't Ahsoka come back in time to help Anakin before it was too late?Full show notes and resourcesPaul Hoppe's book: Friday Night Is My Monday Morning. Use that link to get a significant discount and help support the podcast at the same time.**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Star Wars Generations, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Superhero Ethics.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailTo learn more about co-host Erin and her incredible cosplay: Instagram · TikTokJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

What do you owe to a culture that built you — especially when that culture is evil? Writer and poker thinker Paul Hoppe (ZenMadman) returns to Matthew Fox on Superhero Ethics to dig into R.A. Salvatore's “The Crystal Shard,” the first Icewind Dale novel and the book that launched the 40-book Legend of Drizzt saga. Paul recommended it; Matthew finally read it. The question of who Drizzt Do'Urden is — a Drow elf who rejected his culture and built his own ethics from scratch — turns out to be exactly the kind of question this show was made for.They also get into the D&D debate that's all over TikTok right now: is fudging dice rolls for narrative purposes cheating, or good storytelling? What's the Session Zero conversation that prevents a campaign from falling apart? Is villain Akar Kessel a “power corrupts” story or a “power reveals” one? And when the halfling rogue Regis uses a magic pendant to brainwash bickering towns into uniting against an existential threat — is that manipulation, or just very effective leadership?Full show notes and resourcesConnect with Paul Hoppe: ZenMadman.com**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Superhero Ethics, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Star Wars Generations.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

What happens to a friendship and a podcast over ten years and four hundred episodes? On this milestone episode, Matthew sits down with longtime guest Paul Christopher Hoppe, poker professional and author of ZenMadman's Friday Night Is My Monday Morning Volume 1, to talk about what has changed since Superhero Ethics started in 2016 as a media project that doubled as a mental health lifeline.They get into how internet discourse has curdled, why "nuance" became a weapon instead of a virtue, and how right wing outrage around movies like The Last Jedi and Supergirl made honest criticism so difficult. Matthew and Paul also test whether arguing about values is ever worth it, versus arguing about methods with people who already share them, and float a brand new project built around poker, variance, and statistics. Is superhero media still the right lens for any of this?Full show notes and resourcesConnect with Paul Hoppe: Website**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Superhero Ethics, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Star Wars Generations.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

Before he became the paranoid revolutionary from Rogue One, Saw Gerrera was a scrappy fighter who thought sheer force could win a war. Matthew, Alex, and Erin head back to "The Clone Wars" Season 5 for the Onderon arc, the four episodes that introduce Saw and his sister Steela Gerrera as they lead a rebellion against a separatist-backed puppet king, with Jedi advisors Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Ahsoka training them in guerrilla warfare.The hosts dig into what makes Saw and Steela such effective foils for each other, her patience against his instinct to just go fight, and trace how her death reshapes him into the extremist audiences meet years later. There's a droideka lesson that doubles as a thesis statement and a Hondo Ohnaka cameo with real consequences. What does it cost to keep fighting after you lose the one person holding you together?Full show notes and resources**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Star Wars Generations, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Superhero Ethics.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailTo learn more about co-host Erin and her incredible cosplay: Instagram · TikTokJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

Did Supergirl earn her killing of the already defeated villain, or did the movie just tell us not to worry about it? Matthew Fox is joined by returning guest Jessica Plummer, comics journalist and Book Riot contributing editor, to dig into Supergirl 2026, from the internet's reaction to star Millie Alcock to whether the film's ethics hold together at all. Jessica has been a Supergirl fan since long before the character's 2000s comeback, and brings that history to bear on a film both hosts found entertaining but morally scattered.The conversation covers a sex trafficking subplot that gets dropped almost as fast as it's introduced, a Lobo cameo with no real purpose, and a needle drop so literal it borders on parody. Matthew and Jessica land on the same verdict from different directions: a perfectly watchable movie that never figures out what it's trying to say. So which is worse, a movie that doesn't ask hard questions, or one that asks them and shrugs?Full show notes and resourcesConnect with Jessica Plummer: Website · Flights and Tights podcast**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Superhero Ethics, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Star Wars Generations.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

Queer people have always been in the Star Wars universe — the franchise just keeps hiding them. Matthew Fox, Alex Kormann, and Erin McGowan of Star Wars Generations on The Ethical Panda network take stock of LGBTQIA+ representation across the full canon for Pride Month 2026: from the covert queer coding of Lando and Admiral Holdo, to the openly queer High Republic novels, to the all-female coven of “The Acolyte” and the deeply felt enemies-to-lovers arc of Zeb and Kallus in “Rebels.”The hosts bring genuine stakes to the conversation: Erin grew up in a conservative religious community where bisexuality wasn't a thing you talked about. Matthew is non-binary and queer. Alex is the self-described straight cis member of the group, and arguably the most frustrated by how often the films blink first. Why does Star Wars take bigger risks for a smaller audience? And after decades of queer characters thriving in the books while the films hedge, will the next wave of Star Wars projects finally close that gap?Full show notes and resources: Here**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Star Wars Generations, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Superhero Ethics.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailTo learn more about co-host Erin and her incredible cosplay: Instagram · TikTokJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

In 1984, a group of London lesbians and gay men decided to raise money for striking Welsh miners, because Thatcher was going after both communities. Author Becky Allen joins Matthew Fox to dig into "Pride," the 2014 film about that real coalition, asking what made it work, what the film gets right about discomfort and solidarity, and why the fact that the strike ultimately failed doesn't diminish what was built.They get into the film's careful handling of the AIDS crisis, including a nightclub scene that never names what it's about and doesn't need to. They talk about Sian James, who went from making sandwiches at union meetings to becoming a Member of Parliament. And they push on the question the film keeps raising: how much of yourself do you soften to build a coalition, and what does it cost when you do?Full show notes and resources HereConnect with Becky Allen: Newsletter · Bluesky · Instagram**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Superhero Ethics, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Star Wars Generations.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

Seven years between Star Wars films, and the galaxy came back with a tin-can dad, a green gremlin, and a muscled teenage Hutt with an identity crisis. Matthew Fox of Star Wars Generations joins Pete Wright, Justin Jaeger, and Ocean Murff on The Film Board to work through all of it — the parts that soar, the parts that drag, and the twenty minutes in a swamp that made everyone forget they were watching a puppet.The panel is split on the Swole Hutt (Ocean is in, Pete is out), united on Ludwig Göransson's score, and divided on whether this is a movie or just the best three episodes of a Mandalorian season that never got made. Martin Scorsese shows up as an informant and somehow steals the room. Sigourney Weaver shows up as a character and somehow doesn't. The question the table keeps circling: did Star Wars prove it belongs in theaters, or did it prove Ocean right all along?Full show notes and resources: HereThis episode on The Film Board: The Lunchbox Mandalorian • Mandalorian and Grogu**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Star Wars Generations, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Superhero Ethics.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailTo learn more about co-host Erin and her incredible cosplay: Instagram · TikTokJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

"Ben's PTSD manifested as his alcoholism and his self-destruction as the Spider. ‘I'm just going to go out there and get punched in the face voluntarily, and maybe I'll do some good at the same time.' "— Will FreelandBen Riley didn't become the Spider to save anyone. He did it for the rush, and Spider-Noir on Prime Video is honest enough to build a whole show on that confession. Marvel comics expert Will Freeland joins Matthew Fox to dig into the series: why it works better than either of them expected, how a World War I origin story reframes the cynicism of 1930s noir as something closer to undiagnosed shell shock, and what Nicolas Cage gets right once he settles into the role.They dig into the show's remarkable villain architecture, where almost no one is simply bad, the stealth Black Cat origin hiding inside Li Jun Li's Kat Hardy, and the choice to watch in black and white. What does it mean that Ben's final heroic act is sacrificing the cure he wanted for himself to save the man who has the woman he loves? And can someone who chose heroism for selfish reasons ever really choose it for the right ones?Full show notes and resources: Visit Our SiteConnect with Will Freeland: Twitch · Instagram**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Superhero Ethics, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Star Wars Generations.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

“Heel” is one word, and it sent listener mail pouring in from every direction. Alex Kormann and Erin McGowan take over the mailbag while Matthew Fox is away, working through questions and reactions on both Maul: Shadow Lord and The Mandalorian and Grogu: the empathic link Maul's lightsaber formed with Devon, Captain Lawson's flat ending, and whether a single training command reveals something about how the franchise still thinks of Grogu.The deeper the mail goes, the bigger the questions get. Is Grogu a Mandalorian who happens to use the Force, or is there still a Jedi path ahead? What does it mean that Rotta the Hutt might be his most natural long-term companion? And where does Colonel Ward fit in a story that still hasn't figured out what to do with Sigourney Weaver? The conversation doesn't settle anything. That's the point.Full show notes and resources here.Recommended Listening: Make Me a Nerd with Mandy Kaplan**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Star Wars Generations, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Superhero Ethics.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailTo learn more about co-host Erin and her incredible cosplay: Instagram · TikTokJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

He-Man was always camp. The loincloth, the harness, the flexing, the pink tunic, Masters of the Universe was masculinity as WWE spectacle.. The 2026 film knew this, it just couldn't decide what to do about it. Host Matthew Fox welcomes Pete Wright of The Next Reel Film Podcast on TruStory FM to dig into why this movie feels like five films playing simultaneously, why the Barbie comparison is more complicated than it looks, and what a genuinely great He-Man movie would have required of its filmmakers.There's real craft on display; Idris Elba anchoring chaos, Jared Leto's Skeletor going full Shakespearean villain, moments of nostalgia that land exactly right. But the movie sets up a father-son arc about masculinity and emotional bravery, then resolves it with a half-hearted deathbed forgiveness scene that changes nothing. It gestures at He-Man's campy legacy and then gets embarrassed by it. It makes Adam an HR rep with empathy skills, then turns those skills into a punchline. The movie knew what it wanted to say. It just didn't have the nerve to say it.We also get into the full Mattel pipeline — Polly Pocket, Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, Magic 8-Ball as a horror comedy — and the nostalgia properties we'd actually pay to see: Gummi Bears, Darkwing Duck, and what Scooby-Doo keeps getting right that everyone else gets wrong.Full Show Notes and Resources**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Superhero Ethics, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Star Wars Generations.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

Star Wars Generations takes a deep dive in to the movie everyone's been talking about. Matthew Alex, and Erin each saw “The Mandalorian and Grogu” - Erin and Alex saw it twice - and came back with very different scorecards: Alex at a solid 7 and warming, Erin filling six notebook pages, Matthew the most skeptical of the three but glad Star Wars is in theaters again.They dig into what the movie actually gets right: the creature work, the score, the Anzelens stealing scenes, the Hutt-on-Hutt violence nobody knew they needed. And they do not let the weaker choices slide. Rotta the Hutt's “I just want to be my own man” dialogue, Sigourney Weaver as a glorified NPC, the absent acknowledgment of Carl Weathers, and the tacked-on space battle all get their moment. Was this a soft relaunch or a missed opportunity? That's the question still hanging in the air when the credits roll.Full show notes and resources here.**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Star Wars Generations, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Superhero Ethics.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailTo learn more about co-host Erin and her incredible cosplay: Instagram · TikTokJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

The Boys is over — but did it actually answer the questions it spent five seasons raising? Matthew is joined by returning guest Ocean Murff, podcast host and movie theory enthusiast, to dig into the finale and wrestle with what the show chose to resolve and what it quietly left on the table.They work through the biggest choices of the final season: Homelander's death, Butcher's suicide-by-Huey, Ryan's rejection of both potential father figures, and Stan Edgar walking back into power as though nothing really changed. The conversation keeps returning to the show's deepest tension;  was Homelander ever really the villain, or was he always just Vought's monster, with Vought as the true Dr. Frankenstein? Matthew and Ocean explore whether the show knew it was delivering a dystopian ending even as it dressed the finale up as a victory.They also mourn what was lost when Gen V was canceled, arguing that the spinoff was quietly becoming the space where the harder ethical questions about coexistence, identity, the ethics of power removal, and whether “good supes” can even exist in a world built by Vought,  were finally getting room to breathe. **************************************************************************This episode is a production of Superhero Ethics, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Star Wars Generations.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

Matthew Fox and Erin McGowan recorded this less than two hours after walking out of “The Mandalorian and Grogu,” and they did not land in the same place. Erin found it a charming, Clone Wars-nostalgic adventure. Matthew respected the fun moments but couldn't shake the feeling that three solid TV episodes had been stretched into a theatrical release and then asked to justify the format.The debate gets specific: Does Grogu actually grow in this film, or is Mando the one who regresses? What do you do with a 10-foot emotionally complex slug as your secondary protagonist? Is the Hutt Cartel quietly being written out of Star Wars lore? And with Coyne showing up and then essentially stepping aside, what is the New Republic actually building toward? The full breakdown with Alex Kormann comes later this week.Full show notes and resources here**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Star Wars Generations, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Superhero Ethics.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailTo learn more about co-host Erin and her incredible cosplay: Instagram · TikTokJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

“Empire Records” bombed in 1995, got panned by critics, and spent the next thirty years becoming a cult classic — which tells you something about what reviews are actually measuring. Comics writer and Book Riot contributor Jessica Plummer joins Matthew Fox to revisit the film with real affection and ask what makes it hold up, and what happens when you look at it a little more closely.They get into why the ensemble works even though there are too many characters, why the rooftop finale earns its feeling even when the plot math doesn't add up, and what the film's “damn the man” spirit actually rests on — because the movie is very confident that selling out is bad and independent music is good, and it never quite explains why. The conversation holds genuine love for the film alongside an honest look at its blind spots, which is more or less what “Empire Records” itself is trying to do with its characters.Full show notes and resourcesConnect with Jessica: jessicaplummerwrites.com**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Superhero Ethics, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Star Wars Generations.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

Star Wars has been building to this for six years, and "The Mandalorian and Grogu" opens this week as the first big-screen chapter of Din Djarin and Grogu's story. Matthew, Alex, and Erin put together the primer you need: Din's origins as a foundling of the Children of the Watch, Grogu's choice to stay with Mando over the Jedi, where Season 3 left the two of them, and how the Shadow Council connects to the First Order. Also covered: Sigourney Weaver as a New Republic colonel, Garazeb Orrelios from "Star Wars Rebels" making his live-action debut, and Rotta the Hutt, son of Jabba, voiced by Jeremy Allen White.The episode gets into the debates worth having before you sit down: whether some Hutts speaking Galactic Basic is internally consistent (Erin makes the case and lands it), whether the film will acknowledge the canonical romance between Zeb and Agent Kallus, and what Mando's new status as an off-the-books New Republic contractor means for his approach to bounty hunting. Martin Scorsese is voicing a character named Hugo. It needs explaining, and the hosts explain it. Before signing off, a round of congratulations to Erin on completing nursing school and her pinning ceremony. **************************************************************************This episode is a production of Star Wars Generations, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Superhero Ethics.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailTo learn more about co-host Erin and her incredible cosplay: Instagram · TikTokJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

What does it mean to hold real authority in a card room? Matthew Fox has spent years as a judge for TCGs like Magic: The Gathering and Star Wars: Unlimited, and returning guest Paul Hoppe managed the graveyard shift at a casino poker room. Together they compare notes on what it actually looks like to make a call when there's money on the table and the rules don't quite cover the situation.They dig into the structure of authority in both worlds, from the chain of appeals that runs from dealer to floor to shift manager, to the parallel system TCG judges use, and why explaining your reasoning when you make a ruling matters more than most people realize. A Foxwoods story, in which three different floor staff gave three different rulings on the same type of string raise in under an hour, becomes the perfect illustration of why arbitrary enforcement is corrosive to trust in any game.The conversation also covers how intentionality changes the analysis when players cross lines around language and conduct, why genuine cheating is rarer than new judges expect, and how the very young Star Wars: Unlimited judge program is building policy precedent in real time.Paul Hoppe writes a weekly newsletter on poker and life at ZenMadman.com. **************************************************************************This episode is a production of Superhero Ethics, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Star Wars Generations.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

“Maul: Shadow Lord” just finished its first season, and the full trio is back to take stock of the whole thing. Matthew, Alex, and Erin dig into what the show got right, what that Vader appearance in the final episodes actually means, and where a certain young Jedi is headed now that her master is dead.The conversation covers a lot of ground. How does Vader's cold, strength-heavy fighting style land against Maul's more tactical approach, and is some part of him carrying the memory of Anakin's history with this guy? What does Spy-Bot's death reveal about Maul that the deaths of loyal Mandalorians do not? And what does Devin's arc, her doubts, her rage, and that final scene where she grips the dark side with a quiet smile, say about who she is going to become?The hosts also get into the bigger picture: Asajj Ventress and the question of whether she shows up in season two, the Night Sisters lore threading through “Ahsoka” and where it might cross into Maul's world, and a genuinely heated debate over which is the worse Star Wars film, “Attack of the Clones” or “The Rise of Skywalker.” The answer, it turns out, depends on whether you think cinema is about craft or story, and how much being part of a larger story matters to that question. **************************************************************************This episode is a production of Star Wars Generations, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Superhero Ethics.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailTo learn more about co-host Erin and her incredible cosplay: Instagram · TikTokJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

What made you the kind of person who questions things? Returning guest Rob McKenzie joins Matthew to trace the science fiction and fantasy that quietly shaped his ethics, and the conversation turns out to be about a lot more than books.They start with Isaac Asimov: the pacifism baked into “Foundation,” the Three Laws of Robotics as a moral framework, and the surprisingly dark places minimizing-harm logic can lead. Along the way Rob makes the case that Pratchett's trolls, who get smarter in cold temperatures, say something important about judging minds by the wrong standard. From there it opens up into righteous humanism, the ethics of shoplifting diapers, Chesterton's fence, and what the cancellation of “Starfleet Academy” says about who gets to tell challenging stories right now.At the center of all of it is a question worth sitting with: how much of what we take for granted is just a rule we forgot to ask about?Connect with Rob: Good Luck High Five (YouTube)**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Superhero Ethics, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Star Wars Generations.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

Darth Vader shows up in Maul: Shadow Lord without saying a single word — and somehow that's the most terrifying thing he's done in years. Matthew Fox is joined by Pete Wright and AK Ahab to wrap up Season 1: the Vader reveal, Devan's accelerating fall, Spybot's acid-bath farewell, and the Crimson Dawn cliffhanger hiding a very familiar face from Solo: A Star Wars Story.The core debate here is one the show earns: is Maul an anti-hero, or is Maul: Shadow Lord just cosplaying as one? All three hosts land in the same place, Maul is a villain, full stop, who generates genuine sympathy without ever earning redemption, and the show is better for refusing to let him off the hook. They work through Vader's fighting style (blunt-force strength, no Anakin artistry), the AI voice question hanging over Season 2, Devan's Anakin-parallel point of no return, and whether Lawson's sacrificial-father arc earns its place or takes the easy road.AK Ahab raises the throughline from The Clone Wars to Rebels that reframes the whole season: this encounter is likely where Maul first starts to figure out who Vader actually is, and that context makes every frame of their confrontation land differently. **************************************************************************This episode is a production of Star Wars Generations, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Superhero Ethics.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailTo learn more about co-host Erin and her incredible cosplay: Instagram · TikTokJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

Darth Vader shows up in Maul: Shadow Lord episodes 9 and 10, and not a single character in the room knows what he is. Matthew and Erin close out the first season of the Maul: Shadow Lord Disney+ series with a deep dive into the finale's most jaw-dropping choices: the silent Vader entrance, the lightsaber choreography that deliberately echoes Return of the Jedi, and what it means that this version of Vader is barely two years removed from being Anakin Skywalker.Why was keeping Vader silent both an ethical and a narrative win. How Maul starts putting together who Vader actually is, laying the groundwork for Rebels. Devon's fall to the dark side, Daki's off-screen death, and Spy-Bot's brutal final moment. The Inquisitors feeling more genuinely dangerous here than in previous animated appearances. And a real debate about Dryden Voss's arrival; was it the right call, especially with a recast voice in place of Paul Bettany?Matthew and Erin also pull out for the longer view: what Vader's inability to clean up this mission might mean for his standing with the Emperor, how the Lawson sacrifice played, and what pieces are left on the board for a potential season two. **************************************************************************This episode is a production of Star Wars Generations, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Superhero Ethics.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailTo learn more about co-host Erin and her incredible cosplay: Instagram · TikTokJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

This conversation first aired on Star Wars Generations and we're sharing it here because it raises exactly the kind of question this show was built for.Maul is the only one in the room telling the truth and nobody will believe him. At the halfway point of Maul: Shadow Lord, Matthew Fox is joined by returning guests Pete Wright and AK Ahab to dig into what kind of show this actually is and what to make of a character who has been a Sisyphean tragic figure across every corner of Star Wars canon.The three hosts debate whether Maul is genuinely manipulative or just agenda-driven and honest. AK's reading — that Maul is too deep in self-deception to deliberately deceive anyone else — reshapes the whole conversation. They also get into the show's tonal balancing act: the crime noir Lawson subplot, the casting of a major actress in what might be a very small role, and the very real risk that the show trades its freshest ideas for a predictable Order 66 beat and a Padawan-falls arc. The meditation sequence in Episode 6 alone sent AK back to rewatch The Phantom Menace fight, because Maul's fighting form here doesn't match his onscreen history, and that gap is either a brilliant character insight or an oncoming problem.There's genuine enthusiasm for Maul: Shadow Lord in this conversation, and genuine anxiety about where the back half is headed. Both feel earned.itsmeepete.comConnect with AK: Instagram · Twitter/X**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Superhero Ethics, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Star Wars Generations.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

Maul: Shadow Lord episodes 7 and 8 hit different, and Erin is here to tell you exactly why. From one of the most viscerally cool fight sequences in recent Star Wars animation to a solo episode-length descent into Maul's fractured psyche, these episodes make a case for animated storytelling as genuine cinematic art.Episode 7 delivers the action: Maul versus the Inquisitors, Devin making a pivotal choice to fight alongside him rather than flee, a souped-up speeder chase, and a Mandalorian mutiny that ends exactly as it should. Episode 8, “The Creeping Fear,” slows everything down and goes inside Maul's head; flashbacks to Sidious's torture, Savage's death, and the moment Maul realizes Kenobi is already gone. Erin, a nursing student, reads the voices and emotional volatility as possible markers of schizophrenia, and the framing makes you feel the weight of it without the show ever having to say it directly.The conversation also touches on animation vocabulary; what do we call a “shot” when there's no camera?, and why Spybot remains the best character in the series. **************************************************************************This episode is a production of Star Wars Generations, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Superhero Ethics.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailTo learn more about co-host Erin and her incredible cosplay: Instagram · TikTokJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

Is Cyclops from X-Men actually a cop, or is he just annoying? That question turns out to be the perfect entry point for a much bigger one: what does ACAB (All Cops Are Bastards) really mean when the people using violence to enforce order have optic blasts and power rings instead of badges?Matthew is joined by comics writer and Book Riot contributor Jessica Plummer as they trace how the Green Lantern Corps shifted from lone-sector sheriffs into an explicitly militarized space police force through deliberate creative choices, and what that shift cost the characters. They work through Batman's complicated relationship with law enforcement, the X-Men's internal debates over respectability politics and who gets to set the rules, and why The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl might be one of the most quietly radical superhero comics ever published.The thread running through all of it is accountability; who superheroes answer to, what happens when the authority behind them turns out to be corrupt, and whether a hero who patrols, stops crime, and hands people over to the cops is meaningfully different from the cops themselves.Connect with Jessica: jessicaplummerwrites.com**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Superhero Ethics, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Star Wars Generations.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

Maul is the only one in the room telling the truth and nobody will believe him. At the halfway point of Maul: Shadow Lord, Matthew Fox is joined by returning guests Pete Wright and AK Ahab to dig into what kind of show this actually is and what to make of a character who has been a Sisyphean tragic figure across every corner of Star Wars canon.The three hosts debate whether Maul is genuinely manipulative or just agenda-driven and honest. AK's reading, that Maul is too deep in self-deception to deliberately deceive anyone else, reshapes the whole conversation. They also get into the show's tonal balancing act: the crime noir Lawson subplot, the casting of a major actress in what might be a very small role, and the very real risk that the show trades its freshest ideas for a predictable Order 66 beat and a Padawan-falls arc. The meditation sequence in episode 6 alone sent AK back to rewatch The Phantom Menace fight, because Maul's fighting form here doesn't match his onscreen history, and that gap is either a brilliant character insight or an oncoming problem.There's genuine enthusiasm for Maul: Shadow Lord in this conversation, and genuine anxiety about where the back half is headed. Both feel earned. **************************************************************************This episode is a production of Star Wars Generations, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Superhero Ethics.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailTo learn more about co-host Erin and her incredible cosplay: Instagram · TikTokJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

The Empire has arrived and no one asked for it — least of all Maul, Lawson, Daki, or Devin. Maul: Shadow Lord episodes 5 and 6 bring the full weight of Imperial authority crashing down on every faction at once, and Matthew, Alex, and Erin are here to sort through the wreckage.The hosts dig into Two Boots' catastrophic naivete (snitch? narc? rat? — there's a Morgan Freeman monologue that settles it), the ideological tug-of-war between Daki's passive-voice hope and Maul's active-voice hunger, and whether Devin's arc is really a dark side fall or something closer to what happened to Dooku. The animation's quietest moment — a father and son unknowingly mirroring the same nervous gesture — lands as one of the most emotionally precise beats the show has delivered.Also on the table: the first-ever double-bladed lightsaber versus double-bladed lightsaber duel, the Darth Talon question (with a George Lucas sequel-trilogy bombshell attached), and whether Marrok's Nightsister-adjacent death in Ahsoka means he might not have plot armor here after all. **************************************************************************This episode is a production of Star Wars Generations, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Superhero Ethics.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailTo learn more about co-host Erin and her incredible cosplay: Instagram · TikTokJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

When the survival of every person on Earth depends on one unwilling scientist, one who explicitly said no to sacrificing his own life for humanity, does anyone have the right to override that refusal? That's the question at the heart of Project Hail Mary, and it's what Matthew and returning guest Becky Allen dig into in this episode of Superhero Ethics.They start with the film's biggest reveal: that protagonist Ryland Grace was drugged and sent on a one-way mission without his consent, by scientist Stratt, who decided billions of lives outweighed his individual autonomy. Becky defends the call as a brutally weighted trolley problem. Matthew explores how the film's structure strategically withholds that information, and how American individualism shapes the way we read Grace's refusal in the first place. They also examine what it means that Stratt is written without a personal life or emotional release, and why Grace's isolation and rejection by the academic community may be as central to his arc as any act of cowardice.The conversation ends with the film's quiet optimism: a world that actually listens to scientists and actually comes together. Against the backdrop of pandemic response and climate change, that feels less like sci-fi and more like a wish. A very specific, very clarifying wish.Connect with Becky: BeckyAllenBooks.com**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Superhero Ethics, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Star Wars Generations.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

Maul doesn't threaten Devon — he listens to her, needles her anger, and offers to be whatever monster she needs him to be. Matthew and Alex dig into episodes three and four of Maul: Shadow Lord, breaking down why Maul's approach to dark side recruitment is so much more effective than anything Palpatine ever tried, and what it means for where Devon is heading.The hosts debate the droid at the center of the episode's most divisive moment.  Is Two Boots a narc, a snitch, or just a cop following his programming, and pull that thread into a bigger conversation about free will, droid autonomy, and what it takes for a character like this to switch sides. Meanwhile, the Empire is closing in, and the fault lines between Devon and her master Daki are starting to show.From a one-handed lightsaber duel that's really a power move in disguise, to speculation about Inquisitors, surprise voice actors, and whether a certain character bisected on screen is actually dead — this is a fun, fast-moving reaction conversation with a lot to say about one of Star Wars animation's most exciting new chapters.Mentioned in This EpisodeThe Clone WarsStar Wars RebelsThe AcolyteAndor**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Star Wars Generations, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Superhero Ethics.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailTo learn more about co-host Erin and her incredible cosplay: Instagram · TikTokJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

Baseball's antitrust exemption gives team owners something no other American sport enjoys: a government-enforced monopoly — and Matthew and returning guest Paul Hoppe use the start of a new season to ask what that power actually costs the rest of us.The conversation moves from stadium blackmail to the Oakland A's' deliberate self-destruction, to the Green Bay Packers as a model of what public team ownership could look like. Matthew arrives having previously argued the defensive fan's case; Paul brings his default skepticism about private corporations extracting public goodwill. Neither comes out with clean hands — and that's exactly what makes the conversation worth having.A Texas Rangers statue honoring a figure associated with enforcing post-Brown v. Board segregation, the legacy of Satchel Paige's 1965 appearance at age 58, and a cameo from the Moonlight/La La Land Oscars incident round out an episode that uses baseball as a lens on money, community, and what we owe the things we love.zenmadman.com**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Superhero Ethics, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Star Wars Generations.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

A heist on a crime-syndicate planet, a “Duel of the Fates” needle drop that hasn't been heard since The Phantom Menace, and a Sith lord who barely has to break a sweat... Maul is off to a hell of a start. Matthew and Alex welcome TruStory FM co-owner Pete Wright to break down the first two episodes of the new animated series, set in the lawless underworld of Janix at the dawn of the Empire.The conversation covers the Blade Runner-meets-cop-noir world-building, the “sandwich prequel” problem of writing a character whose beginning and end we already know, and the big question: can Maul sustain eight episodes as a title character? Matthew makes the case that Maul is a Cassandra figure — he sees Palpatine's plan clearly and completely, but his methods mean no one will listen to him. Meanwhile, Pete brings a sharp outside perspective on what the show owes to Andor's willingness to let crime politics breathe.There's also spirited debate over Devin Izara and her Jedi master, whether the show's hallway fight scene has earned its place in a now-crowded genre, and where Crimson Dawn fits into Maul's long game — because Palpatine, as it turns out, is playing Candyland, and the outcome was never really in doubt.Star Wars Generations**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Star Wars Generations, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Superhero Ethics.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailTo learn more about co-host Erin and her incredible cosplay: Instagram · TikTokJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

The long wait is over — Maul: Shadow Lord is here, and episodes one and two make one thing clear: this is not a redemption arc. Matthew and Erin bring their first reactions to a Star Wars series that plants its villain firmly at the center, broken and dangerous, with Sam Witwer delivering a performance that is already carrying the whole show.The hosts dig into a surprisingly grounded world: a cop-dad navigating custody and local crime politics, a droid turf war between Two Boots and Spybot, and a young Jedi prisoner who knew Maul's name the second he walked in — sparking discussion about just how notorious Maul actually was at this point in the timeline. Meanwhile, Erin zeroes in on Maul's recruitment pitch and the gap between what he tells his prisoner (“it's not as simple as good and evil”) and what he admits to his Mandalorian ally (“I will mold her into something powerful”). The show is already playing with a fascinating central question: can someone who has already started bending the Jedi code to survive really resist what Maul is offering?Whether the prisoner turns out to be Darth Talon or someone else entirely, both hosts are hooked — and ready to find out how this broken, revenge-obsessed man tries to rebuild an empire from scratch.Mentioned in This EpisodeStar Wars Content DiscussedThe Clone Wars (referenced throughout, particularly the Shadow Collective arc and Season 7)Star Wars Rebels (Maul's appearances referenced)Andor (compared to Shadow Lord's local law enforcement storytelling)Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (the Duel of the Fates theme moment)LinksConnect with Matthew: matthew@theethicalpanda.com · TikTok · Facebook · Instagram · Twitter/XConnect with Erin: Instagram · TikTok**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Star Wars Generations, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Superhero Ethics.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailTo learn more about co-host Erin and her incredible cosplay: Instagram · TikTokJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is doing something rare for a franchise show: it's willing to put its own hero institution genuinely on trial — and Matthew sits down with Matt Carroll, co-host of the Star Trek Universe Podcast and founder of the Stranded Panda Podcast Network, to dig into all ten episodes with full spoilers in hand.At the center of the season is a storyline connecting Captain Ake, Anisha Mir, and her son Caleb; a morally tangled triangle of guilt, projection, and hard accountability that both hosts find unexpectedly moving. They debate how the show handles its courtroom climax, where the villain Noose Braca's grievances against the Federation turn out to rest on factually false memories. The hosts see a deliberate political metaphor but wish the Federation had been made to answer for more. They also get into the Klingon cadet who wants to be a nurse, the war college subplot as Star Trek's latest engagement with its own military identity, and a three-stakes framework for evaluating action sequences that lights up a new way of thinking about everything from the Daredevil hallway fight to Luke's Death Star shot.The conversation doesn't stay in the story, because the story of what's happening to this show turns out to be just as urgent. Both hosts make the case that Starfleet Academy's pre-emptive cancellation before Season 2 even airs looks a lot less like a business decision and a lot more like a targeted act of political interference — and that watching the show is itself a small form of pushback.Mentioned in This EpisodeStar Trek Content DiscussedStar Trek: Deep Space Nine — “In the Pale Moonlight”Star Trek: PicardThe Orville (Season 4 reportedly in production for a late 2026/2027 release)Other Shows & Films ReferencedDaredevil (Netflix) — hallway fight scene, Season 1Buffy the Vampire SlayerLuke CageIf Starfleet Academy has been sitting in your queue, this is the episode that'll send you straight to it — or send you back for a rewatch with sharper eyes.About Matt CarrollMatt Carroll is the co-host of the Star Trek Universe Podcast and the founder of the Stranded Panda Podcast Network, home to the Marvel Cinematic Universe Podcast, Multiverse News, and more. He loves to explore conversations around storytelling and how it connects to our lives.  This is expressed in both his music and podcast endeavors.The album Left to Burn from Matthew Carroll is available everywhere you get music! Matthew debuted three albums in 2020 with his band The Garage; a double album dedicated to Star Trek and a Marvel-centric album focused on Black Widow. Connect with Matt: Stranded Panda**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Superhero Ethics, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Star Wars Generations.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

Darth Maul was cut in half at the end of The Phantom Menace — and then he spent a decade going slowly insane on a trash planet, came back, conquered Mandalore, and watched it all collapse again. With Maul: Shadow Lord arriving, Matthew and Erin lay out everything you need to know about how one of Star Wars' most iconic figures ended up here. Whether you're walking into Maul: Shadow Lord as a lifelong lore obsessive or someone who just remembers the double-bladed lightsaber, this is the episode that gets you ready.They trace Maul's full arc from Lotho Minor to the Siege of Mandalore: his obsessive fixation on Obi-Wan Kenobi, the Shadow Collective he built from crime lords and Death Watch soldiers, and the moment he used Satine's death to make Kenobi feel what he had felt for years. They also dig into what Order 66 actually cost him — not just the Shadow Collective, but the only two purposes that had been animating his life since The Phantom Menace.The conversation lands on what makes Maul: Shadow Lord such a compelling premise: Maul is the man who saw it all coming and was ignored by everyone. Now the war is over, his enemies are gone, and he has to figure out what he's fighting for. Plus, Erin makes a strong case for why Sam Witwer's voice performance is the reason anyone is this excited about a Maul show in the first place.Mentioned in This EpisodeThe Phantom MenaceStar Wars: The Clone Wars — Season 4, Season 7 (Siege of Mandalore arc)Solo: A Star Wars StoryAhsokaThe MandalorianThe Bad BatchRevenge of the SithStar Wars Generations Episode 324 — Maul, Death Watch, and the fall of MandaloreStar Wars Generations Episode 327 — Darth Maul in LegendsLinksConnect with Matthew: matthew@theethicalpanda.com · TikTok · Facebook · Instagram · Twitter/XConnect with Erin: Instagram · TikTok**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Star Wars Generations, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Superhero Ethics.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailTo learn more about co-host Erin and her incredible cosplay: Instagram · TikTokJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

The Rebel Alliance symbol crossed with a Minnesota loon, is showing up at protests across Minnesota, and Matthew can't stop thinking about what that means. Who made us rebels in the first place? Was it Star Wars, or were we always heading here and Star Wars just gave us the language? That question launches a new series, and Matthew's original Superhero Ethics co-host Paul Hoppe is the perfect first guest to dig into it.Matthew and Paul work through the difference between being a rebel and being a revolutionary. Rebellion says no; revolution asks what comes next. They explore Andor's “mask of fear” idea, why complacency is the real enemy of resistance, and how Lord of the Rings and Star Trek can radicalize someone just as effectively as Star Wars. Paul brings his own quiet axiom to the table: that there's something wrong with the world, and there's nothing wrong with you for wanting to change it.The episode closes with an open invitation: write in and tell the show who your first rebel was, and what made you rebel scum.Mentioned in This EpisodeStar Wars Content DiscussedAndorMaul: Shadow Lord (referenced as upcoming on Star Wars Generations)Other Shows & Films ReferencedStar TrekMore about Paul Hoppe: ZenMadman.comAnd lastly, here is the rebel loon picture Matthew mentioned. **************************************************************************This episode is a production of Superhero Ethics, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Star Wars Generations.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

Darth Maul was never meant to be a true Sith and the Legends novels make that case with devastating clarity. Matthew is joined by Jonah Kellman, host of the Legends novel podcast The Archives Are Incomplete and director of the Judge Program for Star Wars: Unlimited, for a deep dive into the pre-Disney expanded universe books about Maul: Shadow Hunter, Lockdown, Saboteur, and the sweeping Darth Plagueis.Together they build a portrait of Maul as a deliberately broken weapon, a child raised in isolation, and psychologically destroyed by Sidious to ensure he could never pose a real threat. Jonah traces Maul's underworld connections across multiple Legends texts, showing how his return to the criminal fringes of the galaxy after The Phantom Menace is less a plot convenience and more an inevitability. They draw out the sharpest contrast in the canon: Darth Maul versus Darth Tyranus, brute force versus political cunning, down to the meaning of their names and the mechanics of their fighting styles.This episode is essential listening before Maul: Shadow Lord — a primer on who this character was before he became the man rebuilding himself outside the Sith.About Jonah KellmanJonah Kellman is the host of The Archives Are Incomplete, a podcast dedicated to the Star Wars Legends novel canon — currently on hiatus, but still findable online. By day he directs the Judge Program for the Star Wars: Unlimited trading card game. In his downtime, he paints Star Wars minis and runs a TTRPG campaign set during the final days of the Republic and the dawn of the Empire.The Archives Are Incomplete on SpotifyMentioned in This EpisodeStar Wars Content Discussed (and episodes where we covered it)Darth Plagueis (novel) — James LucenoDarth Bane novel trilogy — referenced in discussion of the Rule of TwoThe Acolyte — cited as drawing heavily from Legends canon, particularly the Darth Plagueis novelHeir to the Empire — referenced as the breakout Legends novel that introduced ThrawnLinksStar Wars GenerationsLearn more about supporting this podcast by becoming a member. It's just $5/month or $55/year. Visit our website to learn more.Check out the other show in the Ethical Panda family:Superhero EthicsConnect with Matthew: matthew@theethicalpanda.com · TikTok · Facebook · Instagram · Twitter/X**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Star Wars Generations, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Superhero Ethics.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailTo learn more about co-host Erin and her incredible cosplay: Instagram · TikTokJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

CHRIS HAUETER 6th Degree Black Belt 6th degree Black Belt and member of the dirty dozen (the first 12 non-Brazilian black belts). Chris was the first American to submit a Brazilian in competition, the first American to compete as a black belt at the Mundials in Brazil and he continues to travel the world spreading his Jiu Jitsu philosophy of think street, train sport and practice art. He is also known for his golden rules of grappling, coining the term combat base as the base with one knee up and one knee down, and saying, "It is not about who is good, but who is left. It's time on the mat. You will be somewhere in ten years, you might as well be a black belt too. Just don't quit." Show Notes:     00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro 00:31 Gi and Shirt Memories 03:24 Dream Academy Vision 05:59 Life Without Jiu Jitsu 08:36 Flow State and The Zone 11:23 Fear and Honest Training 14:03 Combat Sports Compared 15:43 Guard as Jiu Jitsu Core 19:01 Community and Lost Knowledge 21:51 Competition and Ego Fear 26:25 Who Should Compete 27:10 Competing For Fun 27:54 Training To Learn 29:18 Aging And Injuries 29:42 Rehab Role Models 31:26 Combat Based Updates 32:16 Graphic Novel Vision 35:02 Tech Genius Myth 36:24 Primal Nature Explained 38:44 Real Violence Memories 42:56 Jiu Jitsu Changes Lives 44:34 Spiritual Invisible Jiu Jitsu 47:05 Learning Like Calculus 48:59 Superhero Ethics 51:42 Hero Journey Wrap Up

Superheroes can bench-press buildings, but they almost never have a healthy relationship with their parents. For this episode of Superhero Ethics Matthew is joined by Pete Wright and Mandy Kaplan to dig into why legacy pressure, attachment injury, and the need for a parent's approval are the real origin stories behind so many of our favorite heroes and villains.Pete breaks down the three narrative engines that power nearly every superhero parental arc, while Matthew and Mandy trace them through Batman's idealized dead father, Tony Stark's lifelong chase for Howard's love, Lex Luthor's impossible battle to escape a name nobody will let him shed, and the Rogue story as a parable about parents terrified of who their child is. The conversation also surfaces a pointed question about whose emotional journey superhero stories choose to follow — and why Leia's reckoning with Darth Vader has been so thoroughly sidelined compared to Luke's.Mandy brings a newcomer's eye that keeps the conversation honest, Pete brings decades of comics knowledge, and Matthew ties it all back to the real thing; we relate to Tony Stark not because we're billionaires, but because we've all had a fraught relationship with a parent. This one hits differently if you have.Previous Conversation Topics Mentioned in This EpisodeStar Wars GenerationsStar Wars: Bloodlines by Claudia GrayStar Wars original trilogy — Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader's father-son arcSuperhero EthicsMoon Knight (Disney+)Daredevil (Netflix)Wonder Man (Disney+) — Matthew's strong recommendationJessica JonesParenthood (1989 film)These are the voices you want in this conversation — pull up a chair and listen.About Pete WrightPete Wright is a veteran broadcaster and media consultant with a 30-year career spanning journalism, brand storytelling, and podcasting. He is a co-founder of TruStory FM, where he hosts and produces podcasts that blend education, entertainment, and human-centered communication.About Mandy KaplanMandy Kaplan is a multi-talented actress, voice-over artist, and writer whose voice can be heard in hundreds of commercials, video games, and audiobooks. She hosts Make Me a Nerd, where friends introduce her to their fandoms, and co-hosts Once and Future Parent, chronicling the adventure of raising — and being raised by — a high schooler.Connect with Mandy: Make Me a Nerd on TruStory FMLinksStar Wars GenerationsConnect with Matthew: matthew@theethicalpanda.com · TikTok · Facebook · Instagram · Twitter/XThe Next ReelMovies We Like**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Superhero Ethics, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Star Wars Generations.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

Pong Krell doesn't just make the clones suffer; he makes the audience question everything the Republic claims to stand for. Matthew and Alex dig into The Clone Wars' Umbara arc, one of the darkest and most ethically uncompromising storylines in all of Star Wars, in which a Jedi general treats the 501st as expendable cannon fodder, refuses to learn their names, and engineers a situation where clone kills clone. This is Star Wars Generations Podcast, where different generational perspectives meet every corner of the galaxy.The conversation moves from the Umbarans as an uncomfortable allegory for resource-driven invasion, to the specific character arcs of Rex, Fives, and Dogma, to a genuine debate about whether the arc's big Krell reveal is a bold storytelling choice or a missed opportunity. Matthew argues the show flinches by making Krell a calculated traitor rather than a Jedi genuinely broken by war. Alex thinks the horror lands either way. They also get into whether Palpatine deliberately set this whole situation in motion — and what it means for Order 66 that clone trust in the Jedi was already fracturing here.What makes the Umbara arc so enduring is that it works on every level at once: it's a war story, a character study, a political parable, and a piece of dark foreshadowing that pays off across multiple seasons. Fives, Rex, and Dogma all leave Umbara different people, and this episode tracks exactly how and why. **************************************************************************This episode is a production of Star Wars Generations, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Superhero Ethics.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailTo learn more about co-host Erin and her incredible cosplay: Instagram · TikTokJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

Helen McCarthy has spent over forty years as one of the West's leading voices on manga and anime — and her new book The Manga Bible is her most ambitious attempt yet to bring that tradition to readers who've never cracked a volume. She joins Matthew to talk about what manga actually is, where it came from, and why it keeps mattering to generation after generation of readers.Matthew and Helen trace the full arc: Helen's origin story (a robot cartoon marathon on Spanish TV in 1981, a partner who'd just had his art-school brain exploded in Mallorca), the London import shops and rented VHS tapes from Japan that built an early UK fandom from scratch, and the wartime suppression that nearly wiped out the medium before Tezuka and others rebuilt it from memory. The conversation covers what manga gave women readers that American and British comics couldn't, why so many Western assumptions about manga history turned out to be wrong, and how Godzilla's origins as post-occupation allegory connects to manga's own post-war reinvention.The episode closes somewhere unexpected — protest songs, One Piece flags at South American demonstrations, and a shared conviction that pop culture's deepest superpower is its ability to carry a rebellion across every language barrier at once.More About Helen and Her BookThe Manga Bible by Helen McCarthy — available from helenmccarthy.net and independent bookstores via bookshop.orgA Brief History of Manga by Helen McCarthyConnect with Helen: helenmccarthy.netDiscussed on Other Superhero Ethics EpisodesGodzilla (1954)One Piece**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Superhero Ethics, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Star Wars Generations.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.

What does "best" actually mean when the Oscars put it on a ballot — and who gets to decide? Matthew sits down with Andy Nelson, co-founder of the TruStory FM family of podcasts, to pull apart the machinery of awards season: how guild voting shapes nominations, why campaigns matter as much as performances, and whether the whole system is rewarding craft or just rewarding whoever threw the better party.Before they get to Oscar strategy, they open with a timely and honest conversation about the BAFTA controversy involving John Davidson — an executive producer with Tourette's syndrome — and what the institution's response revealed about the difference between intent and harm. From there the conversation moves across category fraud (how films like The Favourite and Green Book gamed the lead vs. supporting divide), the impossible split between "Golden" from K-pop Demon Hunter and "I Lied to You" from Sinners as competing definitions of best song, and why genre films still fight for Oscar legitimacy decades after Star Wars got its first nomination.Andy ultimately defends award season as a cultural time capsule — imperfect, political, and very human, but still one of the best tools we have for asking: what did this moment in film actually mean?More about Andy | The Next Reel | Cinema Scope | Movies We Like**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Superhero Ethics, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Star Wars Generations.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.