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Harsher In Hindsight / Atop the Fourth Wall

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Harsher in Hindsight examples for Atop the Fourth Wall.


  • In general, the many early videos featuring Iron Liz can be harder to watch now that Liz and Lewis are no longer friends. Ditto for any episode that features Lewis working with Doug Walker or Brad Jones.
  • Linkara concludes his two-part review of The Rise of Arsenal by remarking that hopefully, DC's forthcoming (at the time) reboot will erase both Cry For Justice and this mini from continuity, resurrecting Lian Harper in the process. Later that week, DC stated that one of the changes is that Arsenal/Roy Harper will be undergoing a reduction in his age and would now be too young to have had a daughter (or at least, the Lian the readers knew) yet. This does mean that Justice League: Cry for Justice and The Rise of Arsenal were erased. Be Careful What You Wish For, Linkara.
    • Although it does go into Heartwarming territory as the DC event Convergence happened and Lian Harper was brought back!, which was even lampshaded by Lewis in his Blue Beetle retrospective!
  • His Blue Beetle tribute in which he praises it on its more lighthearted approach to superheroes and his shame that darker comics get more subscribers than the original runs of the series in light of the new series of Blue Beetle that is going with a Darker and Edgier approach.
  • As a throwaway joke in the review of The Dark Knight Strikes Again Part 2, Linkara sees pixelation in the comic and complains that the comic is glitching out, speculating that a Missingno is involved. Fast forward to the end of the Entity saga...
  • During his review of "Titans #1" in 2008, Linkara makes reference to Lian Harper and the sense of nostalgia he feels about her. Come 2009...
  • Linkara's review of One More Day has a few:
    • He mentions several times how he would do anything to get the effects of said comic reversed (outside of making a Deal with the Devil). Later on, Holokara proves true to that, and was planning to threaten to blow up Marvel Headquarters to force them to reverse One More Day. Even worse, it's stated that the real Linkara would have eventually done the very same thing had he not been made aware of how egotistical and selfish he was becoming.
    • He also noted that he was cautiously optimistic about the Marvel NOW initiative because he thought it would allow the writers to interpret Peter Parker as a young adult that learns from his mistakes instead of an adult with a teenager's mindset. Marvel NOW then began with The Superior Spider-Man, featuring Otto Octavius — a protagonist that not only ignores the "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility" creed that was the cornerstone of his predecessor's code of conduct, but one that absolutely refuses to take responsibility for his actions — which is something that Peter at least tried to do, but screwed up on due to inconsistent writing.
    • His skepticism at Peter telling Tony Stark that he was "like a father to [him]" seems really weird in regards to the Marvel Cinematic Universe versions of the characters. In fact, a number of fans have claimed that MCU Pete's problem was that he was too attached to Tony Stark, to the point of being seen as Iron Man's sidekick.
  • Him trying to contact Apollo Z. Hack may be a bit unnerving when the last time we saw him in the Reviewaverse Saga, he killed Lupa and presumably went on a killing spree, targeting every critic out there.
  • The reason Harvey calls Linkara kid? He lost his son.
  • In his review of "The Electric Tale of Pikachu" he questions how Ghost Pokémon work, stating it is implied that regular Pokémon become them when they die, and wonders if humans become Ghost Pokémon when they die as well. He seemed to have forgotten about Yamask, which are spirits of dead humans, having become Ghost Pokemon, and one of the biggest tear-jerkers of all Pokémon.note  Later games introduced Phantump which is a tree stump brought to life because it's possessed by the spirits of dead children.
  • In his review of issue two of Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters, Lewis has a bit where he dismisses the idea of the live-action Ghost in the Shell (2017) movie ever coming out. Not only did it happen, he uploaded the video onto YouTube in the wake of the massive Questionable Casting reaction to Scarlett Johansson being cast as the Major.
  • His speech about toxic nostalgia in his Infinite Crisis review, while not directed at anyone from Channel Awesome, can feel like this in the wake of numerous complaints of abuse and incompetence regarding CA in general and The Nostalgia Critic himself, Doug Walker, that became public only a month later.
    • For that matter, his reporting on the complaints of writers during the New 52 reflect many of the complaints of former workers of CA.
    • Before that review, in his "Another 15 Screw-Ups of Atop the Fourth Wall", he makes a Call-Back about how he killed the Bat Credit Card joke and after seeing the Critic still being in the corner during that that review months ago, Linkara comments how when the Critic dies, he'll be the owner of the site. Two years later, and Lewis would then leave the site due to horrible management and treatment of his co-content creators.
    • And almost a year after that video was released, there's the review of the comic adaptation of Batman (1989) with the Nostalgia Critic where Linkara brings up fan demand towards another crossover review of an Uwe Boll movie to the Critic. Of course this video would end up being the last time there would be a crossover between the two due to Lewis leaving the site and falling out with Doug the following year killing any further chance of that happening.
  • His defense of Justin "JewWario" Carmical and keeping a JewWario hat in light to the fact that during the very mass exodus from Channel Awesome that Lewis himself was a part of, it was revealed that the sexual groomer and assaulter mentioned in the Google document was, in fact, Justin. Lewis has since taken the hat off the shelf, disabled comments on the Gameboy #3 review that was In Memoriam to Carmical, and edited the video's description to say it no longer reflects his opinion of Carmical and he wouldn't have done it if he knew about Carmical's history.
  • In his "The Next 15 Screw Ups of AT4W", Lewis calls out (although calmly) Douchey McNitpick in regards to how the site still has good content makers despite the Critic retiring and for saying how the site "sucks", before making a joke at the expense of Welshy. Seems all well and good until Welshy offhandly remarks how "the site is dying now, if you believe the critics. And those who work for the site. And the fans." This was posted on December 31st, 2012, six years before everyone left Channel Awesome due to turmoil behind the scenes and treatment of the staff at the hands of the Walker brothers and CEO Mike Michaud.
    • It gets worse when there's the segment between Lindsay Ellis and Lewis about the Supergirl trade he loaned her. She responds that she'll 'return' it when they "shoot the next anniversary". While there was an anniversary special following the controversial To Boldly Flee, it didn't feature most, if not all of the original members of the site, which was an unfortunate signal for fans that began to see Channel Awesome's decline in quality.
    • Douchey refuses to follow the site following the Nostalgia Critic's departure despite there being other contributors to the site. One of the grievances the former producers had with Doug Walker was that he didn't inform them ahead of time about the Nostalgia Critic ending and effectively blindsided them with the news, which put their livelihoods at risk as the Nostalgia Critic was the main draw of the site and their shows got less exposure in his absence.
  • The Caligula Running Gag with The Cinema Snob whenever he was showing up for a milestone episode has become this in light of Brad Jones burning bridges with his old Channel Awesome colleagues, including Lewis Lovhaug. As of the 600th episode, it has been retired.
  • The ending of his Heroes in Crisis review end with him begging people not to attack Tom King over the book's quality. Right around the time the video was posted, King's own actions (making false accusations against Jae Lee, which led to Lee getting harassed) resulted in a far worse backlash against King. note 
  • In the Captain America Secret Origins Month episode, he mentioned "This may surprise some people, but before America entered World War II, there was actually a strong pro-Nazi sentiment in the United States". Only a few years later, the alt-right rose to prominence.
  • Purposely invoked on Atop the Fourth Wall in a storyline where Linkara found out he was turning evil and a series of flashbacks to old comedic moments from the series shows evidence of him becoming aggressive and egotistical to dangerous levels.
  • The Superman vs. Terminator review mocks his Schedule Slip on Revolution of the Mask, with Linkara decades in the future promising fans the third issue will be out soon. Issue two came out a couple months later, but a bit after that, the comic's artist seemingly vanished from the face of the Earth, not responding to any of Linkara's messages after they wished each other a happy Thanksgiving. Thankfully he soon found a new artist, but that was a scary period.
  • In his Planet of the Symbiote Review, Linkara makes a joke about a character who looks like an older '90s Kid. Said character is possessed by a Symbiote. Come the end of the episode, it turns out Linkara's joke wasn't far from the truth.
  • Knowingly mocked in "Mr. T #1," when he says that only an idiot could ever think Mr. T could be guilty of any crime, then immediately prays that T is not involved in some horrible scandal in the near future.
  • In the #200 ending song, there's this line "As allies and enemies both come and go" with Dr. Insano as the image for "enemies". While Spoony had left almost a month before this was released, the video was recorded before that.
  • His early episodes "suicide gun" jokes now feel this way following the tragic death of his close friend Jew Wario.
  • His review of Fame #1 and the questionable comments about Jew Wario using a female avatar in the Pokémon movies reviews are harder to sit through after Iron Liz came out as trans.
  • His joke about taking over Channel Awesome after seemingly killing The Nostalgia Critic isn't as funny now that he's left the site due to mismanagement and other issues. Even worse is that he tried to change it by getting to the higher ups, but had no success and realized it was just a fruitless goal.
    • That and other revelations that came out make all his guest reviews and cameos with Jew Wario a lot more awkward.
  • In the Power Rangers Turbo vs Beetleborgs comic review Lewis jokingly complains about a sponsorship for a convention instantly dating his video. Right after release it became dated for the more serious reason of having his now removed Jew Wario hat prominently displayed in the background.
  • In the 500th episode, Lupa references attending a "beautiful" future wedding of The Cinema Snob’s (with Fat Grandma). By the time the episode aired, Allison Pregler and Brad Jones' real-life friendship had burned to the ground. And as of the 600th episode, Lewis has done the same for Brad.

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