As prophesied back in mid-February, Marvel’s online toymation thing “What The?!” has launched, complete with words from TR contributors Sean Collins and Jon Gutierrez, and terrifyingly good animation from Alex Kropinak. Like, so good it’s kind of scary, Thank god he’s decided to use them them to tell ridiculous tales of a de-powered Iceman hosting a late-night talk show while a jealous Beast tries to sabotage him instead of, you know… evil. Or something. Stop asking so many questions and just watch.
Robert Bricken is one of the original co-founders of the site formerly known as Topless Robot, and its first editor-in-chief, serving from 2008-12. He brought the site to prominence with “nerd news, humor and self-loathing” as its motto, raising it from total internet obscurity to a readership in the millions, with help from his savage “FAQ” movie reviews and Fan Fiction Fridays. Under his tenure Topless Robot was covered by Gawker, Wired, Defamer, New York magazine, ABC News, and others, and his articles have been praised by Roger Ebert, Avengers actor Clark Gregg, comedian and The Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman, the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax, and others. He is currently the managing editor of io9.com. Despite decades as both an amateur and professional nerd, he continues to be completely unprepared for either the zombie apocalypse or the robot uprising.