backstories

Madame Web’s poor initial performance at the box office suggests that few people want to see it in a theater, let alone talk about it sight unseen. But there’s one aspect of it we should talk about anyway, because it’s so wild. Madame Web is a rarity in modern superhero cinema: a movie your friends might think you were making up if you described it to them without embellishment. Ironically, this makes it entirely faithful to the era of comic books it’s adapting. Not only does the comic book version of protagonist…

The woman who might be future pirate Crocodile with a young Shanks in the backImage: NetflixLitman also gave props to One Piece’s creator. “This is to the credit of Oda, these were the notes that he wanted to make sure really, really landed. We had a screening for the premiere of the pilot at the Santa Monica pier. I was sitting there in the back with some of my coworkers, and we were watching with the fans,” he said. “And when those moments hit, especially the Easter eggs, the fans just cheered—they were just…

On the Shelf The Number Ones: Twenty Chart-Topping Hits That Reveal the History of Pop Music By Tom Breihan352 pages$24.66If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores. In February 1964, Paul McCartney boarded a plane for his first transatlantic trip to New York. Things definitely appeared to be on the upswing. He and his Beatles bandmates were booked to play the popular “Ed Sullivan Show” and two sets at famed Carnegie Hall.…