Thee Cult Magazine: Issue 4 | The Superhero Issue

Thee Cult Issue 4: The Superhero Issue 

SHIPPING WEDNESDAY 9 JULY 2025

Holding out for a hero? Don’t bother. The 2010s can be marked as the Golden Age of the Superhero Movie - with 2019’s Avengers: Endgame as an arguable peak to the phenomenon that has made studios and actors billions and captured the interest of the zeitgeist. But mid-way into this decade, with declining quality and dwindling box office numbers, are superhero movies about to go the way of the Western film? With DC’s eleventeenth attempt to make something of its valuable IP - hiring formerly-fired-then-rehired Marvel veteran James Gunn as its new film head - now might be the time to consider: do we need heroes?

INSIDE THE ISSUE

COVER STORY & FEATURE SECTION

• Superman: Why We Should Look Up by Nathaniel Wright

  A bold cultural reassessment of the Man of Steel, tracing his radical roots and questioning how we lost sight of what Superman was meant to stand for. In a world that worships antiheroes and mocks sincerity, this essay asks: can Superman (brought to us by James Gunn) make us believe in hope again?

• Fantastic Four: First Steps or Final Hope? by Dolu Aina

  The Fantastic Four has spent thirty years trapped in the wrong stories - flattened, sidelined, and rebooted into irrelevance. This piece charts the long road from cult classics to catastrophic misfires, and in the midst of the MCU’s creative unraveling, considers First Steps a shot at something deeper. It's a chance at restoring the weird, intimate magic that made Marvel’s First Family (and the MCU) timeless.

• Blade: The Vampire Who Saved the MCU by Olivia Eyeson

  Long before billion-dollar box office and connected universes, there was Blade. This article traces the cultural power of Marvel’s original cinematic risk, re-evaluating how a film once seen as fringe laid the blueprint for the modern superhero empire. Stylish, violent, and unapologetically Black - Wesley Snipes's Blade didn’t just walk so the MCU could run. He bled for it.

CULTURE

• London Has A Problem by Aaliyah Olu

  Part memoir, part manifesto, this articles confronts the quiet violence of gentrification in South London. Tracing the emotional cost of displacement - from Elephant and Castle to Walworth Road - what it means to grow up in a city that no longer wants you? This is a love letter to a vanishing London, and a call to protect what’s left before the silence swallows everything.

• The Passion of Chalamet by Daniel Chandler

  Following Timothée Chalamet’s viral SAG speech, where he declared his desire to be "one of the greats"; this article explores why creative ambition makes us uncomfortable - and how we’re conditioned to mock sincerity, downplay dreams, and fear the audacity to want more. From classrooms to TikTok, this piece unpacks the quiet shame around choosing to care.

• The Black Blueprint by Rhianna Asmah

  A searing chronicle of Black creativity as both blueprint and battleground. From jazz to TikTok, fashion to film, this essay explores what happens when the culture always moves - but the credit never lands. A sharp look at erasure, appropriation, and the quiet violence of being imitated but never centered.
  

MUSIC

• The Death of The Weeknd by Roseline Adusei

  As Abel Tesfaye kills off his most iconic persona, this piece reflects on the decade-long arc of The Weeknd - troubled lover, reclusive antihero, disfigured pop puppet, and finally, a man in purgatory. A captivating look at one of the most exciting male figures in pop and his innovative use of storytelling.

• No Black in the Union Jack by Calvin Shanu-Taylor

  National identity, sonic rebellion, and the Union Jack as both stage and cage. A provocative deep dive into Black British music’s uneasy dance with patriotism.

FILM & TV

• 1+1 = Gen Z: The Severed Generation by Daniel Chandler

  More than dystopia, Severance feels like prophecy. This article a explores how Apple TV’s acclaimed series taps into the emotional architecture of Gen Z - dissociation, digital escape, and the longing to split yourself in two just to survive. A personal, perceptive look at why almost half a generation would choose to forget who they are, and what it costs to disappear.

• 1+1 = "Chikhai Bardo": The Severed Episode by Myia James

  A precise and unsettling reflection on how media invokes misogyny without interrogating its purpose. Focusing on Gemma’s arc in season 2 episode 7 "Chikhai Bardo", James explores the discomfort of watching female pain used as narrative texture - and questions what it means when that discomfort feels neither earned nor examined.

• RANKED: Final Seasons of TV Shows by Sib Nurmohamed

  This edition of RANKED takes you through the best and worst of television’s endings - weighing what makes a finale unforgettable, unforgivable, or perfectly full-circle.

FASHION

• LINE: The Fashion Show in Review by Yasir Guerziz

  A sleek recap and review of Warwick’s Fashion and Editorial Society's annual show. From standout styling to backstage snapshots, this piece captures the energy, ambition, and aesthetic of LINE's "Echoes of the Universe".

• Dandyism: In the Lenses of da Cr8tor by Sheldon da Cr8tor

  With the Met Gala bringing the dandy into focus, in this personal and historical reflection, Sheldon da Cr8tor explores dandyism as legacy, language, and liberation - asking not just where it comes from, but where it’s going. 

• Counterfeit Y2K and Its Consequences by Abia Ali

  A forensic breakdown of the Y2K fashion revival - its erasures, contradictions, and aesthetic amnesia .Tracing the racial, economic, and political histories behind Y2K aesthetics, from Juicy Couture to Jane Norman, and exposes how fast fashion, nostalgia-farming, and algorithmic culture have cheapened a once-subversive era. 
  

• Stylomania: I Am Fashion by Bomo Alogoa

  This piece tracks the personal journey from dressing to impress to dressing to express - and how style becomes a way of becoming.