What the hell took so long?

After nine years, three presidents and no hit television show, Jon Stewart returned to Comedy Central’s The Daily Show. And it’s glorious. 

Sure, Stewart took a pummeling for “bothsidesism” on his official return last week, and I’ll admit: Watching Stewart skewer Biden for his senior moments was almost too painful to watch (especially given Trump’s own run of them lately). Critics even suggested that he take another nine years off. 

They are, to the last, blithering slackwits. Perhaps they forget what it’s like to watch someone read from a teleprompter. They stutter, misread, misspeak, and otherwise clod over prepped lines. Don’t believe it? Watch any Oscar show. 

But Stewart does not read like a normal human. He seems so aware of his words that he doesn’t read them: he tells them, as if recalling a vivid story.

Watch him skewer newswhore Tucker Carlson for his interview with Vladimir Putin. Stewart blasts him not only for softball questions, but for Tuck’s larger slobbering over lifestyles in Russia, where average family incomes routinely run $200 a week. The cherry on top was Stewart’s trademark “Moment of Zen,” a Russian outlet’s subsequent interview of Putin, who called Tuck a feeble mouse. 

At least one of them was accurate.

And unlike, say, Trevor Noah, The Daily Show replacement, Stewart knows American politics inside and out, sometimes better than stumping politicians. No one interviews on-camera as seamless as he.

Stewart ended his sophomore return show with a simple, devastating rebuke of Carlson and his conservative douchebag fans: a picture of Alexei Navalny, the Putin critic killed in Siberia. That, Stewart said, was the true motive behind Tucker’s constipated visage and mission: To put a shiny happy face on tyranny. 

Welcome home, Jon. Make yourself comfortable. 

Every once in a while, when I’m zombie-flipping TV stations, I’ll come across a channel playing Iron Man. Sometimes not far from my cameo about 45 minutes in. I can’t help but watch. Vanity, thy name is Bowles.

I also can’t help but watch because it’s the moment comic book films proved their might to Hollywood — and thus marked the point of their inexorable decline, corruption, and glorious farewell to moviemaking as we knew it for more than a century. Perhaps for history.

I just submitted my ballot for nominations this year for best film, actor, actress, supporting chimp, yaddy. And I struggled to find five Best Picture candidates.

The MPAA will have to select TEN from an arid, fractured cinematic landscape catastrophized by a writers/actors strike and left bone-dry from a pandemic that may turn movies into the Broadway of the Like & Subscribe generation: A pleasant, expensive distraction for those wealthy enough to spend that much money and three hours’ attention to a single storyline.

Iron Man, which turned 15 this year, wasn’t long, not that expensive ((less than $150 million), and very much a risky bet for Paramount Pictures, which produced the Robert Downey Jr. movie. I certainly didn’t think much of it when the studio asked if I wanted a cameo in the film, directed by Jon Favreau, a guy I’d interviewed before.

My response: Sure, but can I interview the cast — including Downey, fresh off a drug scandal, and Jeff Bridges, fresh off being the greatest actor of his generation — for the paper? I guess I’ll be a newspaperman longer than newspapers.

Paramount and Marvel agreed, and we set a date. In addition to the celebrity interviews as a piece, I offered my managing editor a first-person piece on being an extra in a Hollywood comic-book movie.

My editor said the genre was a risky bet, and declined the first-person story. Asshole barely ran a piece on the stars.

But fuck him. Here’s the story I would have written:

Not only was I going to get Downey and Bridges for the story, but Stan Lee, the Marvel Comics legend, would be on hand for his trademark cameo. As fate would have it, our scenes were back-to-back.

I dispensed with the interviews and began my scene — as a guy doing an interview.

The scene was at Disney Hall, which bristled with activity. A red carpet rolled, cameras were positioned and dozens of extras playing a press gaggled murmured and primped. Several asked what a reporter does on a red carpet; I said struggle.

But not tonight. “I guess we better rehearse,” Bridges said to me. It was a career highlight in a job that’s had a few.

We rehearsed the bit: Bridges, Playing Obadiah Stain, discussing the altruism of Stark Industries, with me nodding doped monkey.

What struck me about filmmaking was the time required. We must have spent an hour and a million dollars filming a scene that lasted 15 seconds. It remains a craftsman’s trade, but making movies cannot continue at that pace and cost if it hopes to see 2030.

And even if it does, can comic book movies remain a mainstay? I accompanied the movie to Comic-Con the summer it was to be released. I have never seen a more energized crowd, including for Springsteen or The Stones.

Hollywood needs a hero about now.

So Happy Birthday, Tony Stark. I think I know your candle wish.