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2018 In Review

2018 would serve as further proof that the growing progressive movement in politics was not a lightning in a bottle moment, but built upon the encouragement and dedication of voters, supporters and politicians looking to try and promote the well-being of the American people and the behavior was being spread throughout the world. The United States' reforms had been welcomed among the world though also surprising that they haven't gotten such things that the people took for granted, which led to their own homegrown groups to try and maintain or even expand on these gifts, lest political grifters try to dismantle them in the name of more wealth hoarding. At the same time, the holdouts were clawing away at trying to maintain their soft form of power, even as lobbying reforms and other things are making political offices less desirable among certain individuals. Furthermore, there was also the fact that the conceptual establishment still kept trying to intimidate more "centralist" voters on issues and concerns. Whether or not this will yield any results is difficult to say. There is still plenty of work to be done with the progressive agenda in trying to improve the American establishment and system in place to live up to the promises of yesteryear. However, there is a good deal of determination with it. The 2018 midterms saw the "Sanders wing" within the Democrats grow even larger and there is a gradually growing number of third-party and independent politicians rising above. Beyond promising more to develop a so-called Green New Deal within the works, there are also growing rumors on things such as term limits in development along with potentially ranked-choice voting being discussed. However, one more noticeable outcome was the implementatio of a minimum wage increase bill to that of $15 the hour, which would see some concerns over inflation (though inflation occurred regardless of wage growth and in fact, this led to buying power having gone down over time) as well as companies potentially downsizing or practices in doing so (also countered by pointing that those would have their own consequences.)

Internationally, most of the world is moving forward along with them, with even China working on their own domestic fronts and reforms. The European Union has been encouraged to undergo some reforms between themselves to fix some of the growing and long-standing problems between them. The Middle East has been settling into an even beat and even Turkey has been undergoing some changes with the defeat of Erdogan back in the summer of this year, due to a mix of growing tensions cause by his adminsitration and their neighbors along with growing accusations of autocratic sentiment within his government. Unsurprisingly, the one main exception to this is Russia, remaining noticably under the Putin administration. As they try to tighten their hold on the shrinking number of states within their influence, more and more nations are growing wary and even President Sanders, otherwise more focused on domestic affairs, noted the importance of ensuring a lack of interference, direct or otherwise, within elections or even influence of the public. South America would see the reelection of various leftist politicians though with a more trusted American president, they have begun working closer for multinational deals and ensuring better arrangements while also roping in more corruptive influences within their nation, especially in Brazil and Ecuador due to the growing tensions from certain conservative elements that are supported or tied to big businesses.

It would be a little while before these effects would really be seen in pop culture, but the signs were still there. Growing calls and demands to see inclusion within the media along with representaton of the smaller works. Black Panther would be released and be very well-received the world over. After dealing with the recovery of the Vibranium used for the "Mad Bomb", T'Challa ends up back in his homeland of Wakanda to deal with domestic problems. Beyond a clash of political ideology with the slightly antagonistic but good-hearted M'baku, the main antagonist is set up as none other than "Erik Killmonger" later revealed to be N'Jadaka, his cousin. His father (the king's brother) banished, he grew in America resenting his lot and seeks to usurp his cousin. The film examines the dynamics of politics along with the duty of nation states, including the differences of African peoples raised in Africa and those in America. One of the film's writers noted they were influenced by what happened during the early days of Liberia. The clash would see changes as after the Black Panther defeated the Gold Leopard in the nation dealing with the outside world, especially choosing to help others. The post-credits thing has him discussing matters with Ant-Man on properties of Vibranium... before introducing Vision. This cuts into Ant-Man and Wasp. Following up on what happened regarding with ULTRON, A new company selling cyborg augmentations under Curtiss Jackson's "Power Brokerage Cooperation" and his head mechanic, Howard Mitchell aka Hijacker. Exploiting the weakness and vulnerability within people after the "Madbomb" incident, he sells cyborg augmentations and cheapr armor to the public under dubious circumstances. Mitchell actually got the tehnology from leftover ULTRON drone parts and got the information from studying something... the containment vessel of Vision) Mitchell becomes Hijacker by hacking the augmented people and sing them to attack Jackson, which Antman and Wasp have to disable through shrinking and tampering with the mechanics. After being cornered, he tries to awaken and hijack Vision, only for Vision to began awakening and the two working to free Vision and stop him from Hijack. Vision is a powerful very humanlike android though made of Vibranium and with a hypercomputer brain. He is taken in to be trained by the Avengers, setting up a trilogy. Avengers: Annihilation would see the introduction of Annihilus and the foreshadowed "Power Stone" approaching Earth. A paranoid insectioid alien who sees everything not like him as the enemy, he sees the Earth as a major threat, especially with the Fantastic Four's defeat of the Kree and Skrull. He build his empire on cyborg technology and fueled by the Power Stone. The Four arrive on Earth and have to prepare to try and deal with Annihilus' forces on multiple fronts such as the Avengers, the New Avengers and the Fantastic Four on growing teams. The fights set up several moments, such as the budding relationship of Vision and Mantis along with the former absorbing the vast energies derived from the Tesseract, giving him the powers of flight, energy blasts and going "through" people via molecule frequency changing. While Annihilus is defeated, the groups are seperated and worse still, the reveal of the Power Stone has drawn the attention of Thanos...

While the release of Marvel films have been surprising, other films have been also switching things up. Aquaman was a refreshing and surprising take on the character, along with the inclusion of some surprising foreshadowing of what was to come regarding how the continuity would be done for the DC's own film universe, namely in the potential of the formation of the Legion of Doom. Deadpool 2 would see an odd meta-commentary on comedy versus drama when Wade ends up in a fight against the surprising antagonist in Foolkiller as he tries to figure out his life. Beyond the superheroes, Mission Impossible - Fallout brought to mind the idea of potential global sabotage by foreign powers (in another jab at Russia). Frozen 2 would become pretty popular if a bit lack luster in comparison though the big surprise came from Monsters Inc II: Lost in Scaradise. Initially promoted as Sulley and Mike going on a hunt for Boo, it became a surprisingly melancholic tale about growing up and the changing world, especially when they find her. She recognized them but has to hide them for a while. Parallels between monsters with humanity and humanity that act like monsters are seen though the film does contain a positive ending. Other films came out though there was a growing focus more on independent films and even a few foreign films were seeing growing prominence across in pop culture and the media. While the pay raise and reforms have meant more people were watching films, the question of the fate of the major motion picture lingered in the air because of the growing popularity of streaming.

Video games would continue to grow and develop, and news was being spread over the successor of the next generation of consoles. News came in the form of the Nintendo Switch, planning for a release over sometime in the holiday season of 2019 or early 2020 and meant to combine the home console and handheld consoles. However, this did not stop support of the various games within the systems as new games would come out. Pokemon New Pikachu Edition and Pokemon New Eevee Edition came out over on the Nintendo Twin surprisingly. An HD remastering of Pokemon Yellow Version, it would focus on the new player characters going through a larger and more in-depth version of Kanto and with many surprises such as stronger stats on the starters and the inclusion of Blue/Green, the lost female playable character and a trickster of a gal. Other games included Octopath Traveler, Super Mario Party and Kirby Star Allies for the Nintwin. Red Dead Redemption 2 became the big talk for its long awaited arrival and the controversy on the ruthless manpowers forced behind the scenes that call into question working conditions. Megaman 11 was also a welcomed surprise while the Playstation4 was blessed with Marvel's Spider-Man, which many heralded as one of the best versions of the character along with a remastering of Spyro the Dragon as a trilogy. Computer games also saw a rise in more developments. World of Warcraft released the big news with rumored plans to do a relative "clean sweep" in terms of lore, likely done as a response to previous games. Online gaming is becoming more popular and prominent and with the annoucement, many people are eager to see what is coming for the next year.