World War III Arcade Games

I grew up in Central Jersey during the 1980s, which meant I spent a lot of time at the Jersey Shore as a kid. I loved to spend countless hours holed up inside of boardwalk arcades in Point Pleasant and Seaside Heights. Wildwood had a pretty good selection as well, but being from Central Jersey, …

WWIII Odds & Ends 18 August, 2022

Author’s Note: Tonight’s entry is just a hodgepodge of updates and information about a handful of WWIII related topics. Saturday will a brief piece on World War III-themed comic book and then we will begin setting the stage for the remainder of D+24 next week. Microprose Unleashes Regiments   Earlier this week Microprose released the …

WWIII Comics: The Team Yankee Series

I’ve never been what you might consider a comic book connoisseur. The only series I ever followed frequently was the Larry Hama’s GI Joe back in the 80s when I was a kid, as well as an occasional issue of Archie. I was never big into superhero comics back then or at any other time. …

Mack Maloney’s Wingman Series: Backstory

When many folks think of World War III fiction, the classic titles of the genre generally come to mind at once, like Red Storm Rising, Team Yankee and Third World War. But it’s worth remembering that the WWIII genre is deep and offers a wide variety of titles to suit a variety of tastes. There …

World War III Themes In Contemporary Pop Culture Part III

Over the last decade, Hollywood has shown an increasing reluctance to make any films that might portray the People’s Republic of China in a bad light. The reasons for this are simple. The international market is of great importance for the major studios. China makes up a large chunk of that market, so appeasing the …

World War III Themes In Contemporary Pop Culture Part II

In the later half of the 00s, at a time when WWIII-themes in fiction, television and cinema were scarce, a handful of notable books and television shows were released. Together, they managed to keep the WWIII genre afloat through some difficult times. The 2006 TV series Jericho was one of those life rafts. The show …

World War III Themes In Contemporary Pop Culture Part I

The portrayal of World War III in contemporary works of fiction and movies is notably different from those works produced in the last decade of the Cold War. The fall of the Soviet Union 1991 ushered in a quiet period on the WWIII front that lasted through the next fifteen years with a handful of …

WWIII Pop Culture: Amerika

The 1987 television miniseries Amerika is barely remembered these days, and is regarded as one of the biggest flops in television history. And it was a flop, there is no disputing that. Amerika was a seven night, fourteen-and-a-half hour marathon miniseries depicting life in the US one decade after a Soviet takeover. Preceding its release, …

WWIII Pop Culture: By Dawn’s Early Light Part II

By Dawn’s Early Light’s greatest asset is its combination of cast and perspective. The story structure is the engine that propels the plot. Instead of one storyline, By Dawn’s gives the viewer four major plotlines moving in the same direction, all closing in on the same convergence point. It has more in common with a …

WWIII Pop Culture: By Dawn’s Early Light Part I

Nuclear war movies generally share similar plotlines, components, and even underlying messages. In probably 99% of these films the viewer is treated to graphic scenes showing the wanton destruction of cities, and wholesale slaughter of millions of innocent men, women, and children. The obligatory towering mushroom clouds and flashes of blinding white light are presented …