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2016 In Review

The final year of the McCain administration would be filled with a form of resignation amongst the administration in regards to the growing change, which many perceived due to the declining health of President McCain. The Panama papers became one of the defining moments of the era, showing a glimpse of how the corruption went within the world in regards to governments and the economy. People were hungering for change, more than the old guard anticipated. They would become punished for their hubris with losses. The McCain administration would also end up going relatively quiet throughout the time, merely trying to uphold the status quo. In a sense, there was a wariness to it, like a benchwarer. For others, they saw it as a nail in the coffin of neoconservatism. In their attempts of trying to cut taxes and interfering with infrastructure, little was achieved and in fact, just created a gradually growing pool of resentment and frustration. Not just at the Republicans, but at how the entire system was structured as a whole. For many those who were sharp-witted enough, they saw the writing on the wall and began working to adjust with the times. Others instead held down to their standards and were left gobsmacked when reality came crashing down on them. The people have spoken and their representatives were not listening, and so they were replaced. There was a growing sense of optimism and passion that many noted were not felt since the Clinton administration or perhaps even more. The economy had been recovering, but it still remained relatively stagnant and even a little all over the place due to the uncertainty of direction on what would happen. In fact, many would see McCain as the embodiment of the old guard, especially as those close to him would note that he seemed quite old and exhausted, with a few predicting that McCain was near death's driveway. The American political system was now finally moving past the dominance of the 80s/90s style of neoconservatism and neoliberalism that created the modern world, in the good and in the bad sense. It was now time for something radical and new.

The rest of the world was around the same. The elections of the United Kingdom resulted in a surprise when the hung election result would turn to an election for the Labour party and giving to the rise of Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister of Britain. This along with Sanders' victory led to the potential of a tidal wave of progressivism beginning to rise across the world. There was a new sense of optimism returning and mixed in with a fire for justice. The target of rage began shifting at many of the wealthy and powerful. Across the world, these various progressive leaders would begin coming together to try and assist the others and their peoples to create better tomorrows and deal with the economic troubles that are existing. After all, there were various economic problems that they could come together to try and work together with. Of course, it would be long and complicated and it was not like everyone was on board after all. Some of the companies began talking about stocks or investment or whatver that could be done to try and intimidate some of the economists, though some remained undeterred. For the first time, there was a sense of fresh optimism and determination, tempered with an almost revolutionary-like zeal. Whatever happens will happen, but many mark down 2016 as a turning point for global affairs and for a change in the current world order.

Film saw the continution of Marvel's project as well as DC's after some delays due to various problems. Marvel released Captain America: World At War, perhaps among the more interesing of the MCU films due to its inspiration, the "Madbomb" story. With the Avengers having seperated after the fallout of ULTRON, Captain America and Black Widow meets up with Bucky, aka the former Winter Soldier, who has been recovering from his brainwashing. He warns Cap that the person who "activated" him used him as a diversion, which is then revealed to be the theft of Loki's staff, which is revealed to contain the Mind Stone. It's revealed the plot revolves around Helmut Zemo, who has studied the Mind Stone and plans to use it in conjunction with Vibranium for a "Madbomb", a device that emits powerful disruptive psychic waves, with the intent to destabilize society and begin establishing martial law under the remnants of HYDRA. The film has Cap and Widow assemble a team of "New Avengers", which include Bucky, Spider-Man, The Falcon, War Machine and joined by new characters. King T'Challa/Black Panther (due to the stolen Vibranium and the horror of it being used for weaponry along with his father's death caused by Zemo's agents) and Mantis (a German/Vietnamese woman who was experiented on with the Mind Stone and believed to have alien hertiage). The Mind Stone is collected and secured. The film showed the heroes struggle with dealing with insanity-stricken civilians and keeping control while working to stop Helmut's device along with establishing Cap in a relationship with Black Widow. It was considered a very good film if one that had to juggle introducing some new characters. Mantis meanwhile is testing her powers, trying to understand more of the world, currently in nature. The other has T'Challa preparing to return to Wakanda though promising to keep contact; Cap decides to dub them some "New Avengers" trusting Falcon for a leadership role. The other film released was Doctor Strange, which looked into the world of the magical in Marvel, Set in the 1960s, it has renown surgeon Stephen Strange seek a way to heal his injured hands after an accident. He ends up stumbling into the world of magic meeting the Ancient One and in his studies, discovers a splinter cult dedicated to the first dark sorcerer, Cthon. They seek to free him with a powerful artifact that is revealed to contain the Time Stone. The film was praised for its direction though some frustrated at how the magic was still a bit downplayed. The stinger has them set in the future where Stephen meets with Thor, Stephen noted he missed several important events and wishes to know what happened.

DC meanwhile would end up releasing two films this time, first in The Batman and Batman & Superman. The first film sets up Batman's place and origins within this new DC connected cinematic universe. Unlike most previous Batman films, here Bruce is set up already a veteran hero who has been winning his war on crime in Gotham, with the mob families in tatters and most of the supervillains reformed, treated or dead. However, he must face up with the terrifying Court of Owls, a secret society of Gotham's elite who used the mob and later the supervillains to cause chaos and keep Gotham in their image (it's noted that the reason for Bruce's and others' failure in inducing real change in Gotham is because of the Court). It shows Bruce alongside with Nightwing triumphing over the Court as the two patch things up and with the hope of new reforms in the future for Gotham to help the poor. This was followed up with Batman & Superman, a film that had the titular superheroes uniting against a common threat.Following up from The Batman and Superman Returns, the two meet up in their civilian identities, the latter interviewing the former on the fall of the Court. However, trouble rises that they have to resolve, along with Nightwing and Supergirl. The antagonist is revealed to be Prometheus, a mysterious figure who lost his criminal parents to the law and thus wreck havoc on society. He used stolen alien technology and along with assets provided by the remnants of the Court and Lurthor, created a suit to fight against them both. He would end up being defeated, though not before warning them of something coming. Beyond the superhero films though, plenty of other films were offered in the forefront. Disney's Moana would do quite well in theaters along with the big hit in Zootopia becoming a large hit. Sausage Fest was a mockery at how animation was aimed at children though would be viewed also as not much of an advancement for adult animation. Warcraft served as a fascinating view into the world created by Blizzard that brought hope to successful video game adaptations, though apparently it took effort to get the full version released. The unusual hit was Deadpool, which was a smash hit for bringing popularity and skewed the superhero film genre. At the same time, it took a while to make because of which characters they could use, mainly none of the X-Men characters, instead they drew on Deadpool's cast and even looked for a couple of obscure characters to put in a potential sequel. All in all, many had a grand time with the film.

Video games showed similar promise and competition. Nintendo released the new Pokemon games in Pokemon Sun and Moon Versions that saw the traversal to a Hawaiian themed region, Paper Mario Color Splash maintained the Paper Mario tradition, but with more paper-themed ideas and focused on colors. a new Star Fox game surprised alot of people while Kirby Robobot brought out some unique possibilities for Kirby. Another was an HD Release of Twilight Princess for the Nintendo Twin and the reveal of the new Zelda game coming to Nintedo Twin, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. SEGA continued on with a surprising new installment in Sonic Rush with Sonic Rush III: Fire and Ice. It involves the usage of fire and ice, namely when a machine of Eggman's done to try and drain Blaze of her fire affects Sonic and instead gives him ice powers (or rather, the cool power of the north wind), and affecting levels. Other games included some brand new Yakuza games and a few others. Xbox did continue on with more games beyond that such as the handdrawn game in Cuphead while Playstation 4 soldiered on with Horizon: Zero Dawn, Gravity Rush 2, Uncharted 2 and Nier Automata. While other games like Titanfall 2 were coming acoss platforms and doing well, especially DOOM, the big news was the release of Persona 5 confirmed for the PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Twin, which saw great acclaim in Japan and likely the world when coming out the next year. However, other big shots were indies; beyond Cuphead, there was Stardew Valley, Superhot, Oxenfree and Firewatch. Beyond consoles, there was plenty of action on computers and mobile. Pokemon GO reinvigorated the franchise like wildfire and got people to go out and look for Pokemon while World of Warcraft released the Legion expansion patch, which saw the two sides war along the demonic Legions and included the rare Demon Hunter hero class among other changes. Overall, it looked like there was plenty to be excited for and many wondered what may laid in the future.