D:BA 'Art' - April 2

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us… still talk about it, in a manner of speaking. First, in regards to PBS Nature: if their first, rhino-based episode was a product placement without any product, their second episode, which talked about Madagascar’s lemurs was a complete opposite – it delivered. It talked about Madagascar and its’ rewilding programs, in terms of lemur return (to the wild), in general terms – such as the replanting of the bamboo that the lemurs eat (the episode was de-facto about the greater bamboo lemur), and also – about the wilderness education of the Madagascar people. There was very little aesthetics, plenty of authenticity, and the only unnecessary element, in a manner of speaking, was the gender issue – this online show is about women taking care of the wild, but taking care of the wild and humanity’s social gender politics do not really overlap…

Speaking of humanity’s (ok, the West’s) social gender politics? Let us mention Ms. Lindsey Nicole. I’m probably not the biggest fan of her – this driven and determined young woman wants to get ahead of her competition, and remain afloat; in particular, when Biden and the Democrats were in charge, she made a point of mentioning her alternative sexual orientation, (but nothing more, nothing concrete). Now that we got a ‘new’ U.S. president and his Republican political party, all of her mentions of her alternative sexual lifestyle are gone – LN wants to stay afloat… and she’s succeeding: just last week she launched into yet another online series, this one a collaboration with another YouTube channel, a series that deals with mass extinctions… it is essentially a re-telling of Animal Planet’s™ ‘Animal Armageddon’ series. You have to give LN her credit though – she is a great populizator, her aggressive ‘shock and awe’ delivery style works, and she is always open to collaborate with other people – she really wants to be successful, and so she is. Kudos and a shout-out to her.

In addition, what about this week’s D: BA episode, ‘Art’? It works about as well as you would expect it to work: this season’s mini-bad, Muse (a male villain) is dead already since the season is done in another couple of weeks, and on its’ own, D: BA works just fine. As a part of the greater MCU, however…

‘Mayor’ Wilson Fisk has introduced the Anti-Vigilante Task Force, or AVTF. Um. While we acknowledge its’ connections with some RL issues in the U.S., what about the Sokovia accords? In the ‘She-Hulk’, Matt himself says that they are done and gone, so shouldn’t AVTF be outdated or something? As the Kingpin, Fisk did not care about popular opinion, of course, at least not too much, but as a mayor of NYC, he should, and he is intelligent enough to recognize this fact.

Listen, in RL, analogues of AVTF, such as ICE, exist because people – some people, including some of the Americans, and quite a few of them – approve of them and their actions; numbers matter, and if enough people approve of them, these ‘analogues’ will stay and even flourish, and propaganda – especially the mild one delivered by Disney and its’ daughter organizations – won’t be enough to see them off.

…Not to mention that even internal American propaganda has its’ limits, as the outcome of the elections-2016 showed, for example. However, Disney and co. cannot learn, or do not want to learn and accept, or something. Since they do not, their promoted values do not stick, as the companies cannot change and adapt – it could cost them money in the end, and they do not want that. Much better just to do a token service and be done with it. The viewers and the public will not object too much – they can adapt, on the other hand, as demonstrated by Lindsey Nicole… Real life certainly can suck, and it does.

This is it for now – see you all soon!

Snow White 2025 and D: BA - March 26

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and in this case, I mean that I have developed issues with my cell phone. At least the big dead rat is gone – hooray for small mercies. In other news, D: BA is back with two new episodes this week, so yuppie? Right?

Eh, the jury is still out here. In the episode 1x05 we re-met Yusuf Khan, who’s Kamala Khan’s father or elder brother, I don’t remember which one. Sigh. MM was swept under the rug when in RL Pakistan, (the homeland of the Khan family in MCU) helped the Taliban topple the pro-US government in Afghanistan, and the follow up ‘Marvels’ movie didn’t really go anywhere either. And in episode 1x06 Jack the Swordsman from ‘Hawkeye’ reappeared; in RL, the actor who played Hawkeye suffered a bad accident a while back, so it is unknown if Kate Bishop will return – so far there’s no sign of her in the ‘Thunderbolts’-related material, so there’s that.

Easter eggs aside, Disney/MCU is doing a good enough job of integrating the ‘Daredevil’-related characters into the overall MCU, (and Muse has appeared as one of the lesser-bads of the show, so extra kudos here), and overall this TV series is better than the 2025 Snow White film.

Listen, you know what a hack job is? Snow White 2025 is an example of this. When they were making it – and they took their time making it – Disney could’ve gone with a number of options; they narrowed them down to two: either a by the numbers re-make of the original 1937 film, or a more ‘upgraded’ version, where Snow White becomes either a Maid Marian or a Robin Hood character. Then, some higher-up in the Disney hierarchy had a bad brain, and the studio mashed both of these versions into one film.

Listen. In 2024, Sony has released its’ ‘Kraven’ film, and it was also a mash-up of two films, essentially: the first would have been about the childhood of Kraven, his brother, his (eventual) love interest and so on. The second would have been Kraven travelling the globe, killing various criminals, up to the Foreigner and the Rhino who by then had had enough of his own XP to give Kraven a proper challenge, (i.e. a lion fighting a rhino and realizing that he needs help winning this one, maybe?). Instead, we got a mash-up of both, and people believe that Sony’s Spider-Man related films are finished, most likely. Pause.

…‘Kraven’ is still a better film than Snow White 2025 is, because the former is a mash-up of two related films, and the latter is more disjointed: Sony at least tried to stitch its’ chimera up appropriately, and Disney didn’t. Instead, we got an almost unending barrage of bad PR from both RZ and GG, as well as the crap about the seven dwarves, the overall bad CGI and anything else that could, and did, go wrong. Given that the amount of money Disney invested into Snow White 2025 could have possibly bought the peace between RF and Ukraine – it was such a huge sum – this is just sad. However, this is real life for you, people. It just sucks.

This is it for now. See you all soon.

D:BA SSS - March 19

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about D: BA once more?

Well, no, real life doesn’t always suck; for a couple of days now I’ve been seeing sharp-shinned hawks in my neighbourhood; of course, they can always be Cooper’s hawks instead, but I’m reasonably sure that they’re ‘sharpies’ instead, because of all the red color in their plumage – it is more in line with the sharp-shinned than with the Cooper’s hawks.

What are those avians doing? Hunting, of course – and primarily small birds, songbirds, it looks like, (as opposed to bigger birds, such as feral pigeons or ducks). First, I saw the hawk chase sparrows on a street corner: it came from down low to a tree, flushing the sparrows out – they promptly fled into a bush. The hawk came after them.

A sharp-shinned hawk is one of North America’s smaller hawks, but it is still larger than a sparrow; it could not get into the shrub, so it landed next to it and stuck its’ head and beak inside, trying to flush the sparrows out. It was not too successful, and the neighbourhood’s not-so-friendly Canada geese were not too thrilled by the raptor’s presence either: they promptly made a flanking manoeuver, and began to approach the hawk, hissing and flapping their wings.

The hawk looked at them, decided that it did not like the odds, and left, to the relief of both the sparrows and the local killdeer – they might be shorebirds, but any wet meadow is fine in their books, especially in spring. The Age of Dinosaurs is officially over, my foot!..

And later this week I saw another (or the same?) sharp-shinned hawk in the part. This time, the bird was hunting high in the treetops, but though it is the second half of March, the trees are still bare of leaves, and so the hawk was exposed, and the local songbirds, squirrels (both grey and red species), and chipmunks were avoiding it, easily enough. The local mallard ducks, on the other hand, were just ignoring it, and vice versa. Both events were interesting to see, and so the real life does not always suck; (the Norway rat that was lying dead on a road as roadkill would probably disagree, however. I wonder how long is will remain there, as it is a public road and all. Oh dear, maybe a turkey vulture will pop up too, as it is a big rat, dead or not).

As for D: BA, well, first a reply to all of you who pointed out that ‘YFNSM’ (remember it?) tried to racially diversify its’ characters; of all the main cast, only Peter and his aunt are Anglo-American, the rest tend of P.O.C.s, or else foreign immigrants to the U.S. instead. Pause.

In the current socio-political climate, you think that the U.S. mainstream culture needs more depiction of predominantly Afro-American street gangs in NYC, cartoons or not? In addition, oh, here comes an Anglo-American Spider-Man and handles them easy peasy! Oh, and the Osborns, (who are often Spider-Man’s greatest foes) are Afro-American too now! Hooray! The Green Goblin is going to be actually a different color, cough!

…Well, ok, ‘YFNSM’ might try to do something similar to what Disney did to Will Smith in its’ ‘Aladdin’ remake – make the Green Goblin a different color entirely. Given that Will Smith looked wrong in that purple-indigo shade and that Disney quickly had him walking around in his real appearance, probably not. The Osborns are going to be Afro-American, the Green Goblin – his signature color, and etc. Can we have more Miles Morales Spider-Man films instead?

No, of course not – onto D: BA. In this week’s episode, we get re-introduced to Frank Castle the vigilante, (as opposed to Richard Castle the writer), who claims that he didn’t kill Hector Ayala the White Tiger. We also get to meet Angela Del Toro, who is probably the next White Tiger. The catch here is that Netflix tried to introduce her already in one of the Jessica Jones episodes, but because that show was swept under the rug, (and JJ herself as well), guess that Disney/MCU is rebooting Ms. Del Toro as someone else, not a P.I. as she was intended to be on the ‘Defenders’ shows. What next?

A bunch of new and re-introduced secondary characters, some of whom are actually original, but so far D: BA seems to be going with the reinvention of the White Tiger as its’ main new engine for now – the other heavy hitters, such as the Punisher, Daredevil, and the Kingpin are already established. So far, the show is not bad to watch, and given that MCU aims to entertain first, and everything else second, this is what it planned to do with D: BA all along.

Therefore, for now, this is it. See you all soon!

D:BA 'Hollow' - March 11

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Now, let us talk about D: BA, as we should have earlier last week, but because real life sucks, see above, let us talk about the current PBS Nature special series, of women and nature.

In the season’s premiere, we meet Ms. Doma, (that is her name, I checked), and her relationship with the greater one-horned rhinos. Technically, they are also called the Indian rhinos, but because this episode takes place In Nepal, which is not India, let us call them greater one-horned rhinos instead. There are also lesser one-horned rhinos, a different species, but more on them below.

First, what this relatively short (about 20 minutes long) video was about? Hence the reason behind my anger – it is not about anything in specific, it does not commit.

…Oh, on a certain level it does – it is a product placement. The aesthetics and other visuals are beautiful, the people are obviously aware that they’re being filmed and took care of coming across attractive and appealing, especially the female majority of the cast – they’re not stunningly beautiful, but they are appealing, well-groomed, clearly have spent time (and have time to spend) on their appearance, contradicting the episode’s narration that Nepal isn’t a very forward nation, that women are still being oppressed there. Since we never see any oppression, you either take the narration at its’ face worth, or not at all.

What do we see? Foreign people, especially of the female gender, presented appealingly. Foreign locations, presented also in a positive way. Foreign animals in their natural habitat… or rather brief clips of various animals, doing their thing, oblivious to humans around them.

This is something of a point, as Ms. Doma’s mother was killed in a rhino attack – presumably. In the modern world of fake news and what else have you, this is what happened, or it might not have. In any case, this event is a), treated by showing more beautiful imagery on screen, and b), so what? This is real life, not Marvel, DC, or what else have you; the mother died because of a rhino attack, so the daughter became a wildlife tour guide because of it? Seriously, at least Peter Parker’s superhero origin story makes more sense than this!

In real life, the tour industry is nothing to sneeze at; I worked for a tour company behind the scenes, and there is serious effort and money involved in running one; for Ms. Doma to work in a tour company means that she makes money, and she has a lot of important social connections – i.e., her family isn’t struggling, and they’re upper middle class on the average. Pause.

What all of the above has to do with wildlife of our planet? Nothing, because the episode was about Ms. Doma and whatever impact she’s making on the Nepalese society – more women are getting hired as wildlife tour guides, for example. That is commendable, but what about the rhinos?

Nothing and that is a point. A large segment is dedicated to people teaching others how to handle an encounter with a rhino, but what does Ms. Doma’s gender identity has to do with it?

Again, nothing, and this is the same point. In a 20-minute special, PBS Nature could have talked about Ms. Doma’s biography, how she rose from humble roots to become a person of importance; they could’ve talked about Nepal, how it is moving forwards, to become a more gender-equal, more Western country; they could’ve talked about the Nepalese wildlife, and how it interacts with humans (and with each other), but no. They tried to mix it all together and came up with nothing because they did not stick to anything.

By contrast, Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom series talked, and talk, only about wildlife; their episodes run for about 24-25 minutes, not that much longer than what PBS Nature has, but because they follow only one narrative, they have no problem in getting their message across. What next?

Um, in last week’s episode of D: BA, White Tiger was killed - that is it. The Fisks run NYC, but the Kingpin was doing that in the Marvel Comics for a while now, so nothing new here. What is notable is the absence of Echo – remember her? She fought the Kingpin and won, (sort of), but no mention of her or her friends or of Kazy and the tracksuit mafia in this show. Just as CA: BNA movie, this series is resetting MCU to Disney’s new standards and socio-political landmarks; Echo may be back, but right now? Apparently not.

Back to Nepal and its’ rhinos? The greater one-horned rhino is the biggest Asian rhino and might be the second biggest rhino in the world, even more so than the African black rhinoceros. However, there are important differences between the two rhino groups. (It should be noted that while the rhinos are all related to each other, they are not as close relates as donkeys and horses are, for comparison, so they do not hybridize unlike the latter). No, not the number of the horns – there is one Asian rhino species that also has two, but rather everything else.

The African rhinos are terrestrial animals that come to water only to drink. The white rhino is a grazer; it has a wide square upper lip and a low-set head for easier grass reach and consumption. The black rhino is a browser; it has a hook-shaped upper lip and a high-set head for easier foliage reach and consumption. It is smaller, more lightweight and mobile than the white rhino is, and when the two species clash, the black rhino loses. The point is that the two African species coexist with each other on the open savannah/scrubland and evolved visible physical differences to avoid competing with each other.

On the other hand, the Asian rhinos (the last three species) all live in dense tropical jungle, in marshland, on floodplains, and come into water regularly enough – they are almost semi-aquatic, more like the hippos than like their African cousins, in fact. Consequently, all of them are built similarly – large, bulky bodies with thick armor; though the greater one-horned rhino does overshadow the other two rhino species – but the ranges of the species in question do not overlap, due to population crashes of all of them. Moreover, Whether one horn or two, Asian rhinos’ horns are smaller than the African rhinos horns are, while their teeth are bigger and more tusk-like – they tend to bite humans instead of goring them, as the African rhinos do. The Asian rhinos are herbivores, they do not eat meat, but neither do they specialise as the African rhinos in either grass or leaves – they eat everything, and their teeth, lips, heads and necks, are not as specialised as the African rhinos are.

All rhinoceros species are in danger however, and all of their ranges are shrinking. People are trying to change this, but while the two African rhino species are getting better, (perhaps), the three Asian species – not so much, so it is important for us to protect them – and if that and social gender politics can’t be balanced, then maybe they should be treated separately instead.

For now, then, this is it. See you all soon.

D:BA, Season premiere - March 5

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the premiere of D: BA instead. Holy gazongas, Batman – it’s ‘YFNSM’, just for an older audience!

Work with me, people: if ‘X-Men ‘97’ were all about nostalgia, Easter eggs, and exposition, (and almost always the titular heroes were fighting a faceless mob of opponents rather than someone specific), then ‘YFNSM’ was all about exposition and depiction – unlike the 90s Spider-Man series, the titular character of this show was constantly exposed to new foes; ‘YFNSM’ was all about new depiction of old characters – something of a reboot, put otherwise; the later seasons of AoS did something similar… In addition, D: BA is doing the same thing – so far, it is mostly rebooting the old characters… though it does introduce some new ones.

One of the more important ones is Mrs. Fisk, aka Wilson’s wife. In the 90s cartoon (Earth-92131, if anyone cares), she was mostly an episodic character; she would divorce Fisk in time, and because Fisk loved her, he let her get away with it too. Earth-92131 is worth mentioning both because it depicted the Fisk son, (a criminal but nowhere near the Kingpin’s levels of danger), and it had Spider-Man team-up with Daredevil in order to clear-up his name (both as himself and as Peter) and to put the abovementioned son into jail. Somehow, for a cartoon, it did a good job of depicting Fisk’s levels of danger better than the life-action series do.

The other important character is Josie – she runs the bar where Daredevil and co. hangout. Admittedly, I am mentioning only because I remember her from the original Daredevil and Electra films (Earth-701306), and believe that she deserves recognition, simply because she is alive and Foggy’s dead.

Foggy is Daredevil’s (ok, Matt’s) legal partner. I was never particularly fond of MCU’s take on him, how they depicted him, (the abovementioned Earth-701306 did a better job, I feel), and now, he is dead. In Marvel-verse, few characters stay dead for long, though in MCU death tends to be final, but I am still holding my fingers crossed. Anything else?

Yes, we are introduced to some new characters, such as a White Tiger, (various characters held this moniker in the Marvel world, some via an amulet of power, others not), but for the moment, D: BA is trying to find its’ feet and it does a good job – just not too different from ‘YFNSM’, surface differences aside. Will it succeed or not is still an open question.

For now though, this is it. So far, I am re-watching TBBT, and it is not bad, though it is not good – but this is a story for another time. See you all soon!

‘YFNSM’ S1 finale - Feb 20

 Obligatory disclaimer – real life sucks, so let us talk about the ‘YFNSM’ season finale. It ended on Tuesday, and I… practically missed it. Sigh.

Listen: ‘YFNSM’ is a good, entertainment show, with just enough drama, action, comedy, and even tragedy to keep everyone in suspense. You watch with baited breath as Peter, Lonnie, Harry Osborn and others navigate through life (and high school), while dealing with the likes of the Scorpion and Dr. Octopus, (though he is not that yet). Coupled with the show’s visual aspects – clearly reminiscent of a vintage Marvel comic book, maybe even one from the ‘Golden Age’, ‘YFNSM’ leaves its’ audience… on a good note; some may re-watch it sometime in the future, but otherwise – this is it. All of the abovementioned drama etc. are self-contained; Norman may not have gone goblin yet, and Dr. Octopus has not acquired his trademark tentacles, but in the end, this is the end game, (nine out of ten). What next?

Yes, there are some outliers, such as Nico Minoru, but what role do they play? Hangers-on, window dressing, NPCs. So far, they do not affect the flow of the story and Spider-Man’s personal development. Seriously, yes, Nico is from the ‘Runaways’ franchise, where she is a witch, but is she one on ‘YFNSM’? It doesn’t look like that, whereas in the 90’s Spider-Man cartoon Felicia Hardy grew from an NPC (and MJ’s rival, though that storyline wasn’t really present in that series) into Black Cat, Spider-Man’s friend and ally; (love interest – it came and went), but in the end, Black Cat teamed up with Blade and Morbius to fight vampires in ‘their’ universe – so far, ‘YFNSM’ hasn’t done anything like this; it is the lesser show out of the two. What next?

CA:BNW is developing MCU further, as we’ve talked, plus it took the titular character – Sam Wilson – out of his comfort zone, by putting him against Hulk’s villains: the Red Hulk and the Leader; it also may have made Bucky a politician, but we’ll have to watch ‘Thunderbolts to see what is going on with him – and Yelena; her relationship with Kate Bishop appears to have ended for now, because the winds of social politics in RL have changed, oh the fun of living in the West these days – but that is a different discussion altogether.

For now, this is it. S1 of ‘YFNSM’ is over, and we wish the show all the best it deserves in the future. See you all soon!

Captain America: Brave New World and '...NSM' - Feb 14

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. That said, Happy Valentine’s Day, everybody! This out of the way, let us talk ‘Captain America: Brave New World’ now.

…Whereas ‘YFNSM’ cartoon series just exist in a vacuum, the occasional cameo by Dr. Strange, Daredevil, or even the Iron Man regardless, (they don’t influence there anything, you know?), CA:BNW is a part of MCU, and unlike AAA, it cannot be ignored, as it sets the stage for everything new.

See the evidence: when Sam Wilson only MCU’s (original) Falcon, he and Bucky the Winter Soldier had their own mini-series, named after them, remember? In it, we were introduced to the post-Thanos MCU, and we met both Val, (ok, do not call her that), and Sharon Carter, an ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agent turned weapons’ deal and villain, who was being set up as someone important. Roll even more forward, and Sharon vanishes without a trace, while Ms. Sonya replaced Val in ‘Secret Wars’. SW was one of MCU’s most insipid entries, and so Sonya and friends are gone now instead, and Val is coming back in the upcoming ‘Thunderbolts’ film.

This brings us to Bucky, and – Sarah Wilson, aka Sam’s sister. In the abovementioned mini-series, she was Bucky’s new love interest, (sort of). Previously, he had something going on with Shuri, but then came the ‘Black Panther 2’ movie, and any connections of Wakanda with the Avengers vanished in favor of a Shuri-Namor romance, (tentatively speaking), and Bucky was moved over to Sarah in a favor of another interracial romance. AOS has set MCU’s bar for interracial romances pretty darn low, and CA:BNW + ‘Thunderbolts’ have appeared to cleared it by a mile: Sarah Wilson and her children vanished from MCU, and Bucky seems to be bonding with Natasha’s sister and father in the ‘Thunderbolts’ trailer – no interracial relationships, no color mixing here. USA! USA! The Donald must be so proud!

…Back with Sam Wilson proper, and speaking of colors, we got the Hulk. Ok, we also got MCU’s Red Hulk now – ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross, (in the comics, the Thunderbolts were often his team), but what about the original Hulk himself?

Pause, rewind to MCU’s ‘She-Hulk’, one of the unlucky contenders to challenge SW for the insipidness. For 9 parts out of 10, (or perhaps 11), SH was a typical Mary-Sue story, with the titular character being that woman; watching SH is just pointless, the most important parts there are the Hulk’s story: he went into space and brought home a son. Everything else can be swept under the rug safely… the Hulk and his son not so much, but by ignoring them, CA:BNW does a gamely attempt at doing just that; anything else?

Yes. It is a brand new world where everything from the previous phases matters about as much as the ‘YFNSM’ cartoon – nothing at all. Sam Wilson defeated the Red Hulk who has imprisoned in the Raft alongside Sam ‘the Leader’ Stearns. In addition, we were introduced to MCU’s version of Sabra – Israel’s superhero in the Marvel comics, (who is more closely associated with the mutants, BTW), and the mercenary group the SERPENTS, who will probably be the default villains of MCU for a while, until they all die or whatnot. Given how Disney is lying low while RL USA is changing… just changing, let us leave it at that, they just might be replaced instead, and no one will care. At least, since SW was worse than the ‘Sam & Bucky show’, Val is replaced Sonya once more. Ah, the perfidy of chance!

This is it for now. See you all soon. Have a happy Valentine’s Day once more!