Many fans responded to the news to share their disappointment. Some described how influential the magazine had been growing up.
Mad Magazine was known for its striking front covers, in which it parodies both current affairs and popular television programmes. It often featured the magazine's gap-toothed child mascot Alfred E. Newman on the cover.
The magazine was founded in 1952 and began life as a comic book before changing to a magazine format in 1955.
DC, which publishes the magazine, told ABC in a statement: "After issue #10 this fall there will no longer be new content - except for the end of year specials which will always be new. So starting with issue #11, the magazine will feature classic, best of and nostalgic content from the last 67 years."
Many people, including singer and comedian "Weird Al" Yankovic, shared their sadness at new content coming to an end.
He said: "I can't begin to describe the impact it had on me as a young kid - it's pretty much the reason I turned out weird. Goodbye to one of the all-time greatest American institutions."
I was an intern at MAD Magazine in 1994. I had no apt in NY so I kept my belongings in the archives & took a daypack & crashed on couches for 3 months. In the writers room they had a drum kit to do rim shots on bad jokes. Great memories. I’ll miss it https://t.co/xGjrTeefXI
Can you be nostalgic for the first season of Stranger Things? Slavish worship of the 1980s has been the raison d’être—as well as the raison d’everything else—for Matt and Ross Duffer’s Netflix series. But in its third season, the show has become less loving homage and more vampire squid, sucking increasingly hard at a corpse that has long since run dry.
The new season finds us back in the town of Hawkins, Indiana, where adolescent hormones are coursing through the bodies of the series’ now-teenage protagonists. Telekinetic Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), who mostly goes by “El” now, is doing her best to live the life of a normal teen, which means constantly making out with her new boyfriend, Mike (Finn Wolfhard). Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) has come back from a month at science camp with a long-distance girlfriend of his own—or so he says, anyway—and love is in the air elsewhere, from the ongoing flirtation between Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) and police chief Hopper (David Harbour) to the simmering sexual tension at the community pool, where bored housewives put on their best one-pieces to make eyes at Billy Hargrove (Dacre Montgomery) in his lifeguard suit.
Like its characters, Stranger Things is growing up, or at least putting on a show of maturity. Season 3 discovers the Cold War, introducing a passel of Central Casting Soviets as the human antagonists, and building a large chunk of the season around the introduction of Hawkins’ first shopping mall, which gives the Duffers an excuse to mock up neon-pink Sam Goody signs and make vague comments about the destruction of small-town life. (Communism is bad, but capitalism is … also bad.) Beginning with a group of children sneaking their way into a showing of George Romero’s R-rated Day of the Dead, the new season ups the ante on violence generally and gore specifically, with rats and eventually larger creatures collapsing into puddles of bloody ooze in order to feed the alien entity that the Dungeons and Dragons–obsessed kids have dubbed the Mind Flayer. But the violence is amped up without thought or discretion; every punch lands with a sledgehammer whomp, whether it’s directed at a hulking Russian enforcer or a teenage boy. Set in 1985, the year after movies introduced the PG-13 rating, the season seems infatuated with its own extremely modest maturity, eager to flex its tiny biceps and show off the imperceptible fuzz on its upper lip.
One of the things that distinguished Stranger Things’ first season was its meticulous attention to period detail; it felt like a show that could have been shot in the 1980s, not just set then. But in the third season, that attention has gone out the window. The cutesy signifiers are there—the geometric neon patterns on standard-issue mall wear, a running gag about New Coke—but the rest has gotten sloppy. The dialogue is awash in expressions that weren’t common 10 years ago, let alone 35: At one point, Dustin gives an impromptu lecture on the tropes of nerdism, using a word that was the exclusive province of graduate students and expressing a sentiment that no teenage boy would have laid claim to. New characters like the town’s stuffed-shirt mayor (Cary Elwes) are so underdeveloped that they barely count as types, indebted as they are to the lousy ’80s movies the show apparently fetishizes. (Why recreate something that wasn’t worth watching the first time?) And the returning characters feel like they’ve been twisted to fit the plot rather than developed in any coherent way, especially sheriff Hopper, who deals with El’s modest teenage rebellion by becoming a drunken lout.
Stranger Things’ greatest legacy may be helping move Netflix toward shorter seasons, but even at eight episodes, the third feels distended, less like “one big movie” than a regular-size movie pumped full of digressions of dead ends. Some of those digressions, like Steve’s banter with Robin (Maya Hawke), his sarcastic co-worker at the mall ice cream shop, can be fitful delights, but the cumulative effect is to actively repel your attention, binge TV as background noise. There are frequently flashbacks not only to previous seasons but previous episodes in this season, as if the show knows it never had your full attention.
If there’s nothing as painful as Season 2’s “punk” episode, there’s nothing in Stranger Things’ third season as memorable either. Even the most distinctive moments feel disconnected from the rest, especially a segment in the final episode that feels as if its sole purpose is to be extracted and recirculated as a meme. (Knowing that it absolutely will does not make watching it any more pleasant.) Netflix has lately been moving toward an unofficial policy of capping series at three seasons, and although Stranger Things shows no signs of stopping, the Duffers might want to consider it anyway.
British soul singer Joss Stone says she was deported from Iran after arriving in the Islamic Republic while on a worldwide concert tour, even though she says she didn't plan to perform there.
Posting on Instagram, Stone appears in a video wearing a white headscarf saying: "Well, we got to Iran, we got detained and then we got deported." She said she knew solo performances by women were illegal, but she still wanted to see Iran.
She wrote that Iranian authorities placed her on a "black list" because they believed she might try to perform a public show. She described the authorities that met her on arrival at Iran's Kish Island as professional throughout their interaction.
"These people are genuinely nice, kind people that felt bad that they couldn't override the system," the 33-year-old wrote in a caption.
Under Iranian law, women cannot perform solo concerts, though women do play in ensemble bands and orchestras.
Last January, Ali Ghamsari, a popular Iranian musician, was banned from performing after a woman sang during one of his concerts.
A month later, Iranian authorities banned the music of singer Hamid Askari and his band after his female guitarist Negin Parsa sang a solo at the end of a song at Tehran's Milad Tower Musi.
And in May, Iranian singer Negar Moazzam was summoned to court for singing to tourists in the village of Abyaneh.
'Bringing good feeling'
It is unclear what Stone planned to otherwise do in Iran, though her Instagram post described her desire to show "the positives of our globe".
"I told them my story and explained my mission, to bring good feeling with what I have to give and show those who want to look the positives of our globe, all with the understanding that public performance wasn't an option in this scenario," she said.
"There is music everywhere, even here. We just have to play by their rules and they have to believe we will. It's a trust thing."
Iranian newspapers reported Stone's Instagram comments on Thursday, though there was no immediate government comment on her claims.
Stone earlier posted images of herself boarding a flight to Iran's Kish Island in the Gulf, which is an economic free zone that allows travel by all nationalities.
Stone came to fame in 2003 as a small-town teenager with a big, soulful voice, showcased on her best-selling debut album, The Soul Sessions, and hit singles including Fell In Love With A Boy.
The following contains SPOILERS for all of Stranger Things Season 3 on Netflix. Below, you can also find links to all the individual episode reviews for Season 3, for those who'd like a more focused take on a specific chapter, followed by our full (mostly spoiler-free) Season 3 review.
In the same vein as Game of Thrones, the adolescent cast members of Stranger Things have undergone a striking transformation over the years - both physically and as people. Season 3 effectively highlights the profound changes affecting the kids of Hawkins as they prepare for high school, while also trying to figure out how to grow up without growing apart. Series creators the Duffer brothers succeed in this particular narrative quest, by delivering a darker, scarier, and more action-packed season that surpasses its predecessors.
There's a lot to like about Season 3, but it all starts with the younger characters, who, after seemingly closing the portal to the Upside Down last year, are endeavoring to just be kids during the summer of 1985. Mike (Finn Wolfhard) and Eleven's (Millie Bobby Brown) constant make-out sessions are getting in the way of Will's (Noah Schnapp) yearning to play Dungeons & Dragons with the boys, while Dustin's (Gaten Matarazzo) return home from a month-long summer camp doesn't produce the happy reunion he was expecting. And while it's heartbreaking to see hormones getting in the way of established friendships, the group's division leads to a few exciting team-ups.
Exit Theatre Mode
Dustin and Steve (Joe Keery) are the ultimate comedic pairing in Season 3, with their evolving bromance leading to some emotionally stirring scenes. Both young men are struggling to come to grips with their respective new circumstances: Steve not getting into college and being forced to work at the local ice cream shop, and Dustin's friends not taking an interest in any of his new inventions. Throughout the season, Steve and Dustin's mentor/mentee dynamic is both charming and hilarious.
Joining the dynamic duo is newcomer Robin (played by Maya Hawke), who works with Steve at Scoops Ahoy. Like Dustin, Robin is another mentor for Steve "The Hair" Harrington, challenging the former high school heartthrob in unexpected ways. Hawke blends into the growing ensemble nicely, making it easy to forget that she's brand new.
Without getting into specifics, we can tell you that the Upside Down, the Mind Flayer, and its minions are alive and well, producing some terrifying new creatures and thrilling action sequences later in the season. The new monsters are unlike anything we've ever seen before, and you can tell that Netflix spared no expense in bringing them to life. The season finale, titled "The Battle of Starcourt," is an 80-minute supernatural roller coaster of suspense with movie-size production values. And we're happy to report that all eight episodes are essential viewing, without any of the "Netflix bloat" we've grown accustomed to.
On the adult side of things, Police Chief Hopper (David Harbour) and Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) are going through their own significant character metamorphoses. Joyce is still struggling to get over the death of her beloved Bob Newby back in Season 2. Ryder's heartfelt performance is elevated by the Duffers' creative choices behind the camera, using flashbacks and violent imagery to accentuate Joyce's fractured state of mind.
For Hopper, he's going through the school of parenting hard knocks with his adopted daughter, Eleven. Harbour is incredible in his portrayal of an over-protective dad who's having difficulty accepting that his child is growing up. Together, Hopper and Joyce are an entertaining pair to follow, and their "will they/won't they" chemistry is delightful.
Apart from the supernatural creatures from the Upside Down, Stranger Things Season 3 also boasts a badass human villain named Grigori (Andrey Ivchenko), who eerily resembles Arnold Schwarzenegger from the first Terminator film. Grigori doesn't say much, but his threatening looks and '80s haircut speak louder than words. The mysterious Russian agent has some memorable fist-throwing encounters with Hopper, which are a nice change of pace from battling slimy monsters.
Exit Theatre Mode
Genre favorite Cary Elwes, who plays Hawkins' smarmy Mayor Larry Kline, is, unfortunately, one of the more forgettable additions to Season 3. Elwes plays his part as the villain well, but there's no nuance to his character - he's exactly who you presume him to be, which is a shame since Elwes is such a capable actor.
Stranger Things continues to grow in terms of its cast and the scope of its story, so it's understandable that not every character will get the attention they deserve... But it's still noticeable. Jonathan Byers (Charlie Heaton) and Nancy Wheeler (Natalia Dyer) fall into this particular category, with their respective storylines feeling inconsequential compared to the rest of the Hawkins gang. Even though Nancy and Jonathan are involved with the main plot, if you took them out of the equation, the season wouldn't suffer. Hopefully, the two aspiring reporters will have more to do in Season 4. Time will tell.
The Verdict
Netflix's Stranger Things Season 3 is the series' best outing so far, with bigger stakes and stronger character development than its previous two iterations. As the kids mature, so do their respective stories and the young actors continue to deliver the goods.
Newcomer Maya Hawke is an outstanding addition to the already stacked ensemble, with David Harbour's Hopper and Winona Ryder's Joyce adding a nice bit of emotional depth with their compelling storyline. The production value has also been given a boost, making this Season 3 feel more like something you might see in a movie theater.
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Avengers: Endgame changed the face of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in more than one way--but thankfully, its lack of a credits scene doesn't seem to be a trend. With Spider-Man: Far From Home the MCU has returned to its mid- and post-credits stinger formula with a vengeance, providing us with some of the meatiest teases yet for things to come in the mysterious Phase 4.
If you couldn't already tell--there are a lot of spoilers to follow, so please tread carefully. Here's what happened during the ending of Far From Home and its after-credits scenes, as well as what it could mean going forward. Be sure to also check out our guide to the big, surprise cameo, all of the Easter eggs, and what Far From Home tells us about Phase 4.
Threat or Menace?
Tom Holland's Peter Parker is surrounded by a relatively new supporting cast--he doesn't have a Gwen Stacy, and his Mary Jane isn't actually Mary Jane at all--but some side characters are just too big to change to omit entirely. Take J. Jonah Jameson, for instance--the head honcho of the Daily Bugle, who has been a featured part of Spider-Man films of days gone by, finally gets his MCU debut here in the mid-credits scene of Far From Home.
Oh, and he's played by J.K. Simmons. Again. Some things really do never change.
The major reveal happens after Peter and his classmates return from Europe safe and sound, only to learn that Mysterio had one final trick up his sleeve. He recorded the footage of his confrontation with Peter and edited it to make Peter look like the mastermind behind the attack who murdered Beck in cold blood. And then, just to really nail that coffin lid shut, he revealed Peter's secret identity and sent the whole package to the Daily Bugle for broadcast.
That's right: Not only did Jameson and the Bugle air a story to make Spider-Man look like a psychotic killer, the tape also outed Peter Parker to the world. And all Peter could do was watch helplessly as the footage played on a jumbotron in the middle of New York City.
The real question is what happens next. Historically, identity reveals haven't gone very smoothly for Peter. Back in Civil War (the comics event, not the movie), Peter was encouraged by Tony to go public as the face of superhero registration. He wound up regretting it so hard that he ultimately went to Mephisto, an incarnation of the devil, to have it undone in a story called One More Day which effectively magically reset Peter's status quo entirely, including erasing some of his long term relationships (and marriage to Mary Jane.)
Now, the MCU doesn't have a Mephisto (at least, that we know of) so that particular storyline probably won't make a one-to-one jump from page to screen. However, Peter Parker is one of Marvel's few superheroes who heavily rely on having a secret identity--which makes the next logical step for Peter's MCU a focus on that particular problem. He doesn't have to make a deal with the literal devil (though that would definitely be cool to see) but priority number one for our dear old Spider-Man come phase 4 is going to be putting that genie back into the bottle.
Perhaps even more interesting is the potential fallout around Jameson and Peter. Though the two have no working relationship in the MCU--Peter's way too young to become a crack photographer for a newspaper--one of Jameson's biggest "redeeming" qualities (if you could call them that) was the fact that, as far as he's ever been concerned, his hatred for Spider-Man has been aimed at a full grown adult. In this particular turn of events, however, Jameson publicly announces that Spider-Man is a teenager with all the gusto and bravado you'd expect from J.J.J.--something that adds a whole extra layer of cruelty and danger to the mix. Which begs the question: Is Jameson really just evil and deluded enough to want to ruin some kid's life? Or does he actually believe Mysterio's lies?
That will inevitably be the major challenge for Peter going into Phase 4. Not only does he somehow have to regain his secret identity, but he also has to convince the world that Spider-Man isn't a murderous villain. No pressure.
The Man On The Wall
The major revelations didn't stop there. The second post-credits scene features Maria Hill and Nick Fury as they leave the scene of Mysterio's major disaster--or, well, sort of at least. It turns out that the Maria and Fury we've been with for this movie aren't actually Maria and Fury at all--they're Skrulls (Talos and his wife Soren from Captain Marvel, to be exact).
It turns out that Fury has actually been off-world this whole time with a full-on Skrull army based out of a space station, and he sent Talos to fill in for him while he caught up on a bit of a vacation.
Of course, this asks way more questions than it answers: Just how long has Fury been working with the Skrulls? Since the '90s? Pre-Avengers? Has Talos really been dipping in and out of Earth since Captain Marvel? What are the Skrulls doing working with Fury? What's the goal? There's a throwaway line from Talos-Fury in the movie about "Kree sleeper cells" which might be some indication of their mission, but there's no way to know if that's the whole story or not.
The situation vaguely echoes one of Nick's many comic book storylines, when he worked as "The Man On The Wall," a sort of intergalactic protector of Earth from outer space. The duties weren't always the clearest or the most moral--as part of his job Nick often found himself making the tough choices and involving both himself and his operatives in less-than-ideal situations. But ultimately, as far as he was concerned, it was for the betterment of mankind.
Fury's stint as The Man On The Wall was formally introduced and ended after an event called Original Sin, which involved Fury's conditional immortality (don't worry too much about that) finally giving up. Bucky Barnes briefly took over in his stead--though it's pretty doubtful we'll see anything like that happen in the MCU, at least in the foreseeable future. Bucky will be busy running around with Sam Wilson on their Disney+ mini-series.
Meanwhile, Fury and his Skrull colleagues are likely to crop back up in the MCU relatively soon. It seems like we're heading for a full-on Kree/Skrull war (though, one that will be significantly different from the comics event of the same name) in Phase 4. So, even if he's not a featured part of the plot, we can probably expect to see Fury, Talos, and company skulking around somewhere very soon.
The answer may just be really, really far from home. Cosmically far.
(Spoilers will spoil from this point forward -- venture forth at your viewing peril if you haven't seen the film, or several other recent Marvel movies.)
Given that it was the introductory appearance of Samuel L. Jackson as Col. Nick Fury in the then-groundbreaking tag scene of the first "Iron Man" film in 2008 that presaged the emergence of a greater shared universe and the notion of a superhero team in the form of the Avengers, "Far From Home's" end sequence puts Fury to clever use once more as the MCU prepares to enter what Marvel Studios refers to off-screen as Phase Four.
The sequence kicks off with the reveal that the veteran S.H.E.I.L.D. leader and his stalwart lieutenant Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), who've shepherded Spider-Man (Tom Holland) into superheroic service throughout the film, are in fact a pair of disguised Skrulls, the shapeshifting alien race first encountered on screen in "Captain Marvel" earlier this year.
In fact, audiences met these particular Skrulls before in that film's '90s-era setting: Talos {Ben Mendelsohn), who first appeared to be an antagonist to Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) and a young Fury but later proved to simply be trying to rescue a long-stranded group of his people, including his wife and daughter, from the nefarious Kree, another alien race with its eye on Earth). He's taken on Fury's form, while his wife Soren (Sharon Blynn) has assumed Hill's identity.
Not only does this come as a welcome relief to audience members who'd noticed Fury and Hill acting a little out of character (including being taken in by Jake Gyllenhaal's Mysterio) and over-the-top throughout the film, it provides a neat entry into the next intriguing setup: Talos, whom we last saw on good terms with Fury twenty-some years earlier, has been pressed into service by the ever-vigilant, always-working-every-angle superspy, while Fury is...doing what, exactly?
That's the big question: when Talos reaches out to fill Fury in on the events we've just witnessed, and Fury is at first apparently sipping a tropical drink on a sun-soaked beach somewhere, seemingly indulging in a getaway after the harrowing conclusion of "Endgame" (not to mention being Thanos-dusted and dead for five years). But we quickly discover Fury's only indulging in a simulation of Hawaiian holiday, thanks to some super-high-tech trickery, and is actually aboard an eye-popping spacecraft of some sort. We should've known Nick Fury never gets vacation days.
S.W.O.R.D.
For those familiar with the comic book equivalent of the Marvel Universe, this suggests that another top secret organization is about to make its debut: S.W.O.R.D., which stands for Sentient World Observation and Response Department. It's basically S.H.I.E.L.D. in space -- a peacekeeping force designed to protect the planet from the increasing intergalactic attention it's been getting of late, akin to Tony Stark's vision of a suit of armor surrounding the Earth.
S.W.O.R.D was co-created by none other than Joss Whedon, during a stint on an X-Men comic back in 2004. Whedon also introduced its snarky, resourceful, green-haired director Abigail Brand, a plumb role for any actress not already in the MCU's orbit.
After the Kree-Skrull conflicts and serving as a battleground in Thanos' Infinity War, Fury has clear reason to be concerned that Earth may be about be caught in some very dangerous cosmic crosshairs -- which may serve as the same kind of interconnective story tissue among the MCU's upcoming films as the Infinity Stones did in Phases Two and Three.
The universe is certainly expanding, now that Thor's off adventuring in the cosmos, the Guardians of the Galaxy continue to establish new frontiers in space (including opening the door to Marvel's spacefaring cult favorite Warlock, created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and given definition by Thanos' creator Jim Starlin), and there's still some two decades of Captain Marvel's galactic crusade against the Kree to catch up on.
The Skrulls open up potentially juicy plot springboards as well: 2008's "Secret Invasion" proved to be one of the comic books' most potent storylines, with the many longtime characters revealed to be Skrull sleeper agents in disguise, sparking a massive global conflict -- although Marvel has already gone down a similar road with the use of the terrorist organization Hydra.
There's also the legendary "Kree-Skrull War" from 1971, one of the comics' first far-reaching crossover tales with the Avengers at its center, in which the two races engage in all-out combat. And there's a well-remembered sequence from 1983 in which the gargantuan planet-eating being Galactus -- who's become a popular figure of speculation as Phase Four's ultimate Big Bad, in the vein of Thanos -- devoured the Skrull homeworld. That could provide a great entry point for the most cosmic Lee-Kirby creation of all, Galactus' noble herald The Silver Surfer, whose film rights are now back in the hands of Marvel Studios following Disney's acquisition of previous right holder 20th Century Fox.
Perhaps most intriguingly of all, the Skrulls could possibly open the door for the MCU introduction of another of Marvel Comics' crown jewels, the Fantastic Four, also recently returned to the studio in the Fox deal. The changelings first debuted back in 1961, at the very dawn of the Marvel Universe, in Fantastic Four #2, where the superhero team defeated them by hypnotizing them into believing they actually were dairy cows, whose bovine shapes they'd assumed.
Hey, Marvel made a talking racoon and a sentient tree work on screen, so who knows what else the studio can make us believe?
