Category Comic Books

Nov 16 2011

Top Ten Butterfly Effects

One theme that runs through many time travel stories is that of the Butterfly Effect. Most famously demonstrated in Ray Bradbury’s short story “A Sound of Thunder” where time travelers go back to prehistoric times on a dinosaur safari and inadvertently change the future by carelessly killing a butterfly in the past. The most recent example of the Butterfly Effect is in Stephen King’s newest literary release 11/22/63; in that book the assassination of John F. Kennedy is prevented resulting in a radically altered timeline.

This list will cover some of the best Butterfly Effects presented on several media that I’ve seen or read (sorry haven’t read Lest Darkness Fall or The Time Ships yet), and are based on Effects directly due to time travel and the amount of time spent exploring those altered worlds.

10. “Storm Front, Part I & II” from Star Trek: Enterprise; the fourth season opener concluded the maligned and confusing temporal cold war storyline. Captain Archer and the Enterprise crew are trapped on Earth during World War II in a timeline altered by aliens. This resulted in the Nazis being more technologically advanced and occupying parts of the U.S.

9. “Turn Left” from Doctor Who; the episode examines what would have happened if Companion Donna Noble never met the Doctor. It’s a grim timeline that features the deaths of the Tenth Doctor, Martha Jones, Sarah Jane Smith, Torchwood and Britain under martial law.

8. “Year Of Hell, Part I & II” from Star Trek: Voyager; the crew of the lost starship Voyager stumble upon an obsessed alien intent on using time as a weapon in his region of space then as a means to restore his wife after utilizing the weapon erases her from history. The Voyager crew literally go through hell as they try to track down the alien and restore the timeline. It was so well done many fans grumbled when things went back to normal!

7. Flashpoint; The DC Comics mini-series and its spin-offs has the Flash preventing his mother’s death while time traveling, which forever alters the DC Universe. First the Flash is trapped in a nightmarish, violent version of the DC Universe with many altered heroes and villains then the storyline concludes with the creation of the New 52 titles running today with updated versions of the DC heroes.

6. “The Hanged Man” from Journeyman; it’s a short-lived series from 2007 that in a similar vein to Quantum Leap had the hero (reporter Dan Vasser-played by Kevin McKidd) uncontrollably time traveling and changing history. In this episode, Dan leaves behind a digital camera in 1984 that is reverse engineered. When he returns, not only is technology more advanced but his young son is erased and instead has a daughter, leaving him with a deep moral dilemma.

5.” Profile In Silver” from The Twilight Zone of the 1980s; the late Lane Smith portrays a history professor who goes back in time to study the assassination of his ancestor, John F. Kennedy, and winds up saving him. This of course begins a cataclysmic chain of events due to time trying to compensate for the alteration. In other words World War III is about to erupt. In true Twilight Zone fashion, the ending is a real twist.

4. The Guns Of The South; Harry Turtledove’s masterpiece is about what happens when Confederate soldiers are armed with AK-47s by time-traveling racist white South Africans. Obviously this turns the tide of the Civil War in the Confederate’s favor and readers learn that Lincoln loses re-election, Robert E. Lee becomes president of the C.S.A., the U.S. gets into a war with Britain and the Confederacy becomes a technologically advanced nation.

3. The Age of Apocalypse Storyline from the X-Men books; Professor X of the X-Men is accidently killed in the past by his son. This chain reaction leads to the villainous mutant Apocalypse conquering America and committing genocide on non-mutants. For months the crossover X-books featured alternate versions of mutants such as a heroic Magneto leading the X-Men, Wolverine with a missing hand and teams with different members some of whom are villains in the regular books like Sabretooth.

2. The Nantucket Trilogy comprised of S.M. Stirling’s books Island In The Sea Of Time, Against The Tide Of Years and On The Oceans Of Eternity; the storyline has the island of Nantucket, its modern-day inhabitants and a Coast Guard ship sent back in time to the Bronze Age. Their necessary interactions with the people in that time period lead to early introductions to gunpowder, primitive air travel and increased global trade and contact. Naturally trouble starts when renegades leave Nantucket and begin to carve out their own kingdoms leading to armed conflict.

1. The Back To The Future Trilogy; Robert Zemeckis’ three films about a time-traveling teenager and his buddy scientist is actually a fantastic examination of the Butterfly Effect. In the first film, Marty McFly travels from the 1980s in a DeLorean to the 1950s and prevents his parents from falling in love. The obvious effect is that he and his siblings are being erased so he has to restore the timeline (audiences are helped by the rapid fire explanations of Doc Brown about the nuances of time travel). He succeeds for the most part. While his parents do wind up together they are changed due to their future son’s influence and this results in Marty’s family being better off when he returns to the ’80s.

In the second film, a trip to 2015 results in a more dire Butterfly Effect. The trilogy’s villain Biff Tannen steals the DeLorean and travels to the ’50s to make his younger self rich. When Marty McFly and his friend Doc Brown return to the ’80s, their hometown has been transformed into a nightmarish vision. Seedy casinos and chemical plants are everywhere,

crime is rampant and even Richard Nixon is still president while the Vietnam War rages on. Marty’s family life is radically changed as his father is dead and his mother is married to Tannen. In the third film, the Butterfly Effect is reflected in the duo’s adventures in the 1880s; chiefly with their confrontation with Tannen’s murderous ancestor which could lead to their premature deaths. The Effect is last touched upon in the end when we see a landmark renamed and Marty McFly altering an event in the ’80s that has an unknown yet hopeful alteration to his future.

José Soto

Nov 5 2011

Alternate History In Film and TV

Time travel films and TV shows are popular and well known to audiences. However one will find a lack of films and shows about alternate history and universes. Based on this inequality viewers  would think that alternate history is some minor niche sub-genre in science fiction. But sci-fi fans who actually read books and stories know that’s not the case. Just scroll through the Amazon or Barnes and Noble sites and one can find a multitude of books and story collections concerning alternate history. Many are very popular with readers such as the many multi-book series by Harry Turtledove (ex. the Worldwar books, the Great War trilogy, etc.), S.M. Stirling’s works and so on. Even comic books have notable alternate history works. These include Captain Confederacy, Storming Paradise, Marvel Comics’ What If? one shots, DC’s Elseworlds comic and most famously Alan Moore’s Watchmen. Then why so little films and TV shows?

The genre has been so poorly represented that one can easily count the amount of films and shows about this subject. Some of the best examples aren’t obvious alternate history but are well known. In fact, one film is considered one of the best films ever made. Which one? It’s A Wonderful Life. Many say it’s a fantasy but it’s also about alternate history. George Bailey wishes he was never born and is then shown a world where he never existed, one that is nightmarish. Viewers only see the butterfly effect on George’s hometown Bedford Falls (renamed Pottersville) but one can’t assume there weren’t other butterfly effects. Notably when his guardian angel points out to George Bailey that he never saved his brother and thus George’s brother never saved his fellow soldiers in World War II. Who knows what effect that would’ve done to the timestream? Also evil Mr. Potter became more powerful and corrupt without George Bailey to keep him check. There’s no telling what kind of influence Potter would’ve had in the darker world shown in It’s A Wonderful Life.

Other examples of alternate universes usually show a world that has been altered by time travel (and perhaps giving the impression that the genre is tied to time travel, which it isn’t). A good example of that is Back To The Future, Part II where Biff Tannen steals the time-traveling DeLorean and alters his past making him a rich and influential figure in history. Aside from the changes to his and Marty McFly’s hometown, viewers with good eyes will see that the world had been altered. Look at a newspaper that Doc Brown shows to Marty McFly. The altered timeline in Back To The Future, Part II takes place in 1985 and a feature article in that paper is one that shows that Richard Nixon is still president of the United States and that the country is still involved in the Vietnam War.

There have been other films that are more clearly about alternate history. Unfortunately many of them aren’t any good, and came and went in theaters without much notice. This could be why studios don’t greenlight more films in this genre. Such films include Jet Li’s action piece The One (which shows several alternate worlds including one with a President Gore), Southland Tales, C.S.A.: The Confederate States Of America, the 1995 version of Richard III (which takes place in a 1930s fascist Britain and stars Ian McKellan), Never Let Me Go, HBO’s adaptation of Fatherland (with the oft-used premise of Nazis winning World War II), It Happened Here, and White Man’s Burden (which has a world where racial roles are reversed between whites and blacks). Add to that list Zack Snyder’s Watchmen adaptation where frankly the best part of the film was the opening credits which showed how history was altered when superheroes came into existence in the 1940s and 1960s. A more recent film that has to be labeled alternate history is Inglourious Basterds. It’s more of a World War II action picture but the ending, without giving away spoilers, demonstrates that the film is about alternate history. Another recent example is District 9 wherein an alien craft becomes stranded in South Africa in the 1980s although it takes place in modern times.

Regarding the TV medium, the best examples of alternate history are Fringe (which has a major storyline about crossing over into a world where the World Trade Center is still intact, technology is about ten years advanced of ours, and where Bono isn’t a famous singer), an awful ’80s show called Otherworld about a family trapped in a parallel world and Sliders, of course. Despite its wildly varying quality, Sliders best exemplified the exploration of alternate worlds. Oftentimes, the creators went wild in presenting worlds that had living dinosaurs, an America ruled by Communists and other powers and different world threats. Sadly this also meant that Sliders had some truly dumb episodes that ripped off the plotlines of several sci-fi stories. Regardless, Sliders is probably the best TV example of alternate universes. Believe it or not The West Wing can also be considered to be about an alternate universe since it clearly shows that recent history has had a few fictional presidents (without a mention of the Bushes and Clinton) and events. Spike TV recently aired a half-hour program called Alternate History that examined what if the Nazis conquered America. It was blasted by fans of the genre for glossing over many repurcusions and it’s unknown at this time if more episodes will follow. Other genre shows like Star Trek and Doctor Who have had episodes dealing with alternate universes as well.

Some shows and films (and books too) are now considered alternate history because at the time they came out predictions were made that never came to be. They clearly point out that they took place in a certain time period and events happened that would radically change our history up to now. Look at Alien Nation (both the film and series). The storyline claims that the alien Newcomers came to Earth sometime in the late ’80s or early ’90s. Then there’s Strange Days (which takes place in late 1999 and has a world with advanced VR tech) and Red Dawn, where the U.S. is invaded by Soviet forces. One has to lump in 2001: A Space Odyssey and its sequel 2010 since we don’t have A.I.s or regular lunar transports (with Pan Am still in existence!) to bustling space stations. Some films will soon become alternate history presentations as dates stated in the films come to pass. That includes Blade Runner (L.A. has about eight years to keep from looking like that hellhole shown in that classic film) and Back To The Future, Part II. We’re about four years away from the film’s look at 2015 and there still aren’t any hoverboards, cool flying cars and self-lacing sneakers. There’s still time for the Cubs to win the World Series by then. 😀 With TV shows, the mini-series Amerika and The Day After have to be thrown into this lot (thankfully neither events depicted in them have come to pass).

 

Aside from poor reception by viewers one reason why there alternate history doesn’t have more of a presence in film and TV could be that they require extensive exposition to explain themselves. Look at Southland Tales; in that film several minutes in the beginning was used up to show that the U.S. diverged from our history when terrorists detonated two nukes in Texas. It was clumsily presented and frankly one didn’t care about how this impacted the dull characters.

Another reason for the lack of such films and shows is that alternate history can be complex, showcasing a broad range of characters affected by altered events. Aside from expensive production values, to really get audiences involved the productions  need to have well-developed characters like in many books. This logic of caring only about characters could be why some films are only about the altered lives of the characters such as It’s A Wonderful Life, Sliding Doors and The Family Man. It would help if people took more interest in history to better appreciate this genre. That is because alternate history offers us a way to reflect on how things might’ve been different and to enjoy what we have or strive for something that we don’t have yet.

José Soto

Oct 11 2011

Superhero Brand Management 101: One Pure Version Needed

 

Despite the success of the New 52 comic books from DC Entertainment’s DC Comics division, I’m still not seeing an ability by TPTB to consolidate their superhero properties into one source material. I’m a lifelong comic book fan, with a professional background in branding and licensing. I look at superhero properties not only as a fan but also as a brand manager. Here are a few problems I still see superhero companies like Marvel and DC struggling with:

 1) Superhero properties must be cross referenced and cross compatible. There isn’t one clear, solid mass consolidation of the characters across all major media- film, TV, video games, animated series and their related merchandising ventures. This goes for DC, Marvel and, to a certain degree, other comic book companies who overextend their properties. I think they’re taking the wrong approach. This is brand management failure in the making. By that I mean that there are too many versions and variants of characters and their costumes and storylines and it dilutes the core characters. At DC, they have a big problem: Why isn’t Superman’s costume and storyline from the regular comic books seamlessly tied into the 90’s Superman Animated Series, the CW’s Smallvile, DC Universe Online game and the new upcoming Superman movie? BTW, the next Superman movie has no relation with the past films, and is being produced as a relaunch/remake because Superman Returns wasn’t a big hit. Noticing how The Dark Knight made more money, Warner Bros. want the new Superman movie to be “darker.”  Unfortunately, they are all standalone, independent works with no consideration on how any one of these iterations relate to each other.

 Footnote: DC Comics editorial, Superman writer Geoff Johns and artist Gary Frank superbly consolidated elements of the Superman movies and his past comic book iterations. Frank was allowed to illustrate Superman in the likeness of the late Christopher Reeve; the crystalline Krypton- designed for director Richard Donner’s Superman  by brilliant production designer John Barry, was incorporated into comic book Kyptonian architecture. The movie’s three Kryptonian villains (General Zod, Ursa and Non) finally appeared in the comic books. While General Zod originated in the ’50s comics, Ursa and Non were created for the  movies. It was Johns’ inspired idea to suggest they include all Kryptonian costumes designed by all comic book artists from the ’40s to present time, explaining that Krypton’s fashion was as diverse as Earth’s and what Kryptonians wore depended on their guild. Kryptonian fashion illustrated by John Byrne, Curt Swan, Gene Ha and from the films were all finally intermixed successfully. With the relaunch it’s unknown if they’ll keep that Kryptonian integration.

2) Too many %^$#**&$@ iterations of one character. Marvel suffers from this with all their properties. How many Wolverine comics are out there? There’s a title called Dark Wolverine and it’s not even the regular version of the character. And Logan once a proud loner is now in a whole bunch of teams! (Previously, he joined only the X-Men, that was the charm of it!) My question is: How does the comic book relate to the ’90s X-Men animated series, or 20th Century Fox’s X-Men movies, multiple X-Men video games, and other animated series? And now that’s happened with Spider-Man (the underdog loner) and all his different costumes. And let’s not forget there are two different Marvel Universes- the mainstream Marvel Universe and the Ultimate Universe. I know the reason behind it- sales and profits. Spider-Man and Wolverine are fan favorites. Marketing execs must love these infinite variations of the popular Marvel character since they can sell more comic books and toys, but it is confusing and turns away new readers.

3) Cost prohibitive and time prohibitive story lines.  I go across comic book aisles and see special event comics and multiple tie-ins and special issues (Blackest Night, Secret Invasion, DC’s numerous Crisis events and tie ins) and it turns me away. It’s unaffordable! It seems as if the larger companies are targeting upper middle class and upper class readers because the average fan cannot afford to buy so many comics just to get a complete story.

4) DC needs to scale back the amount of comics even more per month. Until the New 52, each month DC put out 52 regular titles, plus many four- and twelve- issue miniseries, and event comics for the tie ins and TBPs. Now they relaunced the DC Universe and cut back the number of monthly comic books to just 52. But it’s still too many comics to afford at $2.99 or $3.99 for each comic book. To read the full interrelaed story, the average buyer needs to spend $150 a month, and that’s for the New 52 comics alone! What about your favorite comics from Marvel, Dark Horse, IDW, or Dynamite? But even if the prices were lower the bottom line is that the average fan doesn’t have time to read every single monthly comic book that comes out per month. It’s impossible. We have to pick and choose what we read and often it feels like we aren’t getting the full experience because no one is picking up every single tie-in. This was a problem when the comic book companies flooded the marketplace with too many titles and eventually everything imploded as a backlash from the speculator boom and the industry still hasn’t recovered from that. Back in the ’60s Marvel had a very manageable lineup with about twelve titles per month. It was easy for readers to jump aboard, experience the full Marvel Universe and not feel overwhelmed. Remember the adage, less is more!

5) Superhero costumes need to be consistent to maintain strong branding. Getting back to the New 52, one big example of this problem is the Superman outfit. In Zach Snyder’s upcoming film, the colors are way off; it looks bluish grey with red violet and no red trunks. In the New 52 comic books, the costume has the right red and blue colors, but no red trunks, just a red belt. And a collar, which seems to be a superhero prerequisite in DC’s New 52. Superman’s outfit is still not consistent from one medium to another. Unfortunately the producers of the new Superman movie, and DC Entertainment clearly didn’t want the classic costume meaning the costume differs from the one Supes wears in the New 52. The result is that already many fans aren’t happy. The same thing happened with Green Lantern. They made a choice with the film to have the costume appear organic and that was fine, it worked. But they should’ve used that costume when they rebooted the New 52 Green Lantern comic book. As a matter of fact, many fans expected they would do that, and were disappointed. DC had the perfect chance and pretext last month with the relaunches to do this but they didn’t. They need to realize that the movie medium is the strongest medium and should be the strongest point of reference.

6) Superhero Genre: We need to understand that superheroes aren’t a medium they are a genre that spans several media. This was proven back in the ’40s when Superman became a radio star and ceased to be confined to the comic book medium. What should be done is to just pick the version that is most popular, whether they be the movie version or the comic book version. In other words, all media should be cross-referenced to be compatible, with the highest priority given to the look of the costumes. This doesn’t mean that story isn’t important but comic books are more of a visual medium so the costume and visuals can’t be screwed up.

 

7) Executive-level decision mass consolidation of the characters and stories across all major mediums. This has to come from the top execs of WB and Disney sending  directives to DC Entertainment and Marvel respectively. For example, the likeness of an actor portraying the superhero or villain should be used in the comics, toys, etc. This can be expensive in terms of royalty but it just means they need to better negotiate this when coming up with the contract.

8 )Power to the (fans and consumer) people! Another thing the companies can do is have some kind of fan base council (with power and influence) that report to the big guns as to what is popular and what isn’t based on direct feedback from fans who can provide comments or answer polls. This will help bring about the highest level of consumer satisfaction.

 9) Price and online incentives: The price of a paper copy New 52 comic is the same as it is with the digital copy. The digital copy has no enhanced features. Why not? DC is missing out on a huge online opportunity: Incentives for digital comics could be online content like official character websites, commentary, videos, etc. Senior level direction is needed to map out where everything is in terms of the characters’ bios. Online charts and maps should be provided to help new readers understand what is going on, draw them in and appreciate any character’s rich history. 

Conclusion:

 There has to be one pure version of the property, and looking at this from a branding perspective, the property is still muddled. The standalone, independent business model that superhero companies are following is a bad idea. Their properties must be cross-referenced and cross compatible for all mediums, and whichever company has the guts to carry out this properly will win in the long run.

 

GEO

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Sep 18 2011

Thor Is Better Than Iron Man!

There’s the other blu-ray release this week, Marvel Studios’ Thor, which came off as a pleasant, unexpected surprise when released in theaters this past May. Why was it better than it seemed? Blame it on marketing, maybe (man did those awful heavy metal riffs at the end of the trailer nearly kept me away from the movie). But it looked very uninspiring in the trailers as some run-of-the-mill fantasy romp. Instead the film was a clever re-imagining of the Marvel character while celebrating its larger-than-life Kirbyesque landscape.

In the comic books, Thor is the God of Thunder from Norse myth. While the comics also state that he and his fellow Asgardians are more or less extra-terrestrials, this film full on states this as fact. The result is one of the more imaginative alien cultures shown on film. Basically, their technology is so advanced that it seems almost like magic to us. For example the famed Rainbow Bridge which leads to other realms is for all intents and purposes a sort of wormhole machine and it looked spectacular on the big screen.

More importantly, director Kenneth Brannaugh’s science-based vision of the Asgardian world is so rich that it fires any viewer’s imagination. Right away, I was able to conceptualize how Thor is probably genetically attuned to his hammer that is itself a probable lightning rod. Despite some misgivings from some about the Earth based scenes, which inject much needed humor, the entire effort pays off and enriches the burgeoning Marvel movie universe.

Why is it better than Iron Man? I could go on forever but I’ll just go over a few points. For starters, the villain Loki is so much better than Iron Man’s Obadiah Stane. Loki could’ve been a Joker rip off but in this film, he’s so calculating and subtle that you can’t help see his side that Thor isn’t entitled to rule Asgard. Stane on the other hand, is your average evil capitalist. Too many Marvel films have them. Another point is that with Iron Man, it takes forever for Tony Stark to actually become don his regular Iron Man armor. In fact, I believe there are only three scenes where he’s in the red-and-gold outfit and this happens after more than hour into the film! With Thor right away you see him using his powers (which is one of the main reasons he gets exiled to Earth) and actually Thor doesn’t bother with a standard origin storyline and that’s a relief. Instead the transformation into a hero has to do with Thor transforming his soul. And one last point is that Iron Man after a fantastic first hour starts to drag once Stark escapes his captors, then it’s waiting until he fights Stane. And that came off as a quickly done robotic fight straight out of a Transformers film. Not with Thor, I know some people complained about his scenes on Earth but to me it added more to his story and only made me wish they spent more time with the fish-out-of water aspect to it.

The film was a big hit and a sequel’s in the works. However, it did seem to get lost in the buzz but that’s because the market is saturated with superhero films. Add to that the crappy 3D conversion that everyone complains about (when will studios realize that cheaply done 3D results in hard-to-see film that will turn off audiences from shelling out moolah for any future films?) and that’s why it wasn’t as big as hit as Iron Man. That’s too bad, but now that it’s on DVD it’s worth a look.

Lewis T. Grove

Sep 2 2011

DC’s Digital and Print New 52: The Game Changer

DC  Comics unveiled this Wednesday their reimagined universe with Justice League #1, (written by Geoff Johns and drawn by Jim Lee and Scott Williams). This isn’t an ordinary reboot per se.

Variant cover to Justice League #1 by David Finch

Rather it’s the next evolution for comic books.  As every comic book fan knows, on August 31, 2011 DC simultaneously released print copies of Justice League #1 and digital downloads of the same issue. While comic book shops received their copies on Tuesday, they weren’t allowed to put them up on shelves until their stores opened the next day. With the digital downloads, however, they were ready for consumers at 12 am  midnight on Wednesday.

That already is one plus side for downloads and in theory this means that everyone, anywhere with Internet connections can get a copy of their favorite comic book.  If you lived in big cities like New York that have many comic book stores it’s fairly easy to find any kind of comic book. But if you live in small towns, often you’d have to travel many miles scouring the landscape for a new release and hoping that the small store you find still has a copy of the release. That is if they even carried it in the first place.

Upcoming Detective Comics #1, Cover by Tony S. Daniel

This could spell trouble for comic book stores. But if they’re smart they can re-tool their business model and possibly gear their stores more to sell merchandise based on the comic books. That’s just one idea. Either way, they need to adapt or go the way of travel agencies and record stores that were decimated by travel websites and iTunes. But for fans and publishers, digital downloads are the way to go. But it’s not without its drawbacks.

First of all, it’s one hundred percent web dependant. If your Internet connection is poor or the signal is cut off you can’t read the comic book. See, if I was living in the Legion of Superhero’s perfect 30th century world where technology was very advanced this wouldn’t be much of a problem. But today, it is still easier for me to walk five feet over to my bookshelf and pick up a print copy than to turn on a computer or tablet or smartphone and search for the same comic book in digital form. Also, there’s no interactivity with the Justice League download. The word balloons and art are static, but on a plus side, there are no ads and the images are hi-res. In fact, the final four pages consist of costume sketches by Lee and Johns.

Being that it’s a protected download, you cannot copy it and send or sell it to a third party. If your friend wants a copy, he or she can’t just borrow a print copy and give it back to you; it has to be bought. For publishers this is a godsend since I think this may help boost sales.

Speaking of that, I believe that the downloads will wind up selling five times more than print copies. Eventually we may see sales totaling about 500,000 per issue versus today’s dismal 20,000-30,000 figure. Of course, I doubt it will equal or top the World War II figures of millions of copies per issue and that’s because there is so much media for comic books to compete with.

Upcoming Action Comics #1, Cover by Rags Morales

A good ripple effect from downloads is that poor-selling titles may have a longer life. Ordinarily, a comic book with low sales would be canceled for economic reasons. But if it switched to being solely a digital download then production costs will be low enough to keep it going. While fans of that title won’t be able to own a print copy, they can at least follow the title on-line.

As downloads and new apps and technologies emerge and come of age, it will be easier for new generations already accustomed to the new technologies to buy downloads and actually prefer it over running down to the store to buy a print copy. This is truly a game changer not only for DC but the comic book industry at large. Now for the perfect connectivity, what’s the name of that 30th century Internet service provider?

GEO