‘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!

‘YFNSM’ + 'Circe' - Feb 6

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the next three episodes of ‘YFNSM’, yes?

…Well, that was the plan, but somehow I ended up reading Ms. Miller’s novel ‘Circe’, and-

-And the novel is a mash-up of various myths, some about Circe, and some not really. What caught my eye is the novel’s treatment of Circe, Picus, and Scylla.

First, Scylla. In the ‘Odyssey’, she is an immortal evil, undefeatable by anyone, so Odysseus does not try to begin with. In the ‘Aeneid’, Aeneas and his fleet just avoid her (and Charybdis – the duo are a matched set, JRH breaking them up is something new), and in the ‘Metamorphoses’, she is an empty-brained and hollow-hearted girl who denies Glaucus his love for her, and Circe – who’s been jilted by the sea god in question – turns her into the monster that Odysseus meets… and who eventually turns into a sea reef (according to ‘Metamorphoses’). What next?

In ‘Circe’ this pretty much what happens; the only twist here is that the team of Circe, Telegonus (Circe’s son by Odysseus), Penelope, and Telemachus ends Scylla. Pause.

Leaving aside the soap opera morality of Odysseus’ two sons marrying each other’s mother, (this has happened, in fact, in some of semi-apocryphal conclusions to the ‘Odyssey’), what about female empowerment? Wouldn’t it make more sense for Circe to undo her enchantment and return Scylla to her original self (before swimming off into the sunset with her new trophy husband, his mother, and her son who’s married to her new mother in law)? No? So much for progressive values – first Circe de-facto mutilates another woman for the sake of a man (that she quickly moves on from, to boot), and then she ends her, heroically, of course. Wow.

As for Picus, he just is not here. His story is also told in ‘Metamorphoses’: he was a pre-Trojan Latium king who refused to cheat on his wife with Circe and transformed into a woodpecker instead. His wife failed to recognize that, and wasted away. ‘Circe’ just ignores this story…wonder why.

…The point here is that Ms. Miller tried to tell Circe’s story anew, in a new, progressive way, but what she told instead is a now-old story of a powerful woman who rises to match the men-folk around her…and becomes just like them, albeit gender-flipped. Pause.

‘YFNSM’, meanwhile, is trying to tell the origin story of the titular character also in a new way, but somehow it all feels empty, pointless. The 1990’s ‘Spider-Man’ series already did that, and in a much grander manner than the 2025’s version, which is doing its’ best to be politically inoffensive. Sigh. By losing the elections-2024, the Democrats have really dropped the ball, shot themselves in the foot, stabbed their non-politician allies in the back and so forth. In addition, team Marvel (and Disney?) are having a giveaway of a Marvel encyclopedia at the same time as this cartoon airs, and so they are trying to generate the primary excitement for the giveaway, not the cartoon. The universe might really hate the ‘Spider-Man’ franchise for real, after all.

…Well, this is it for now – see you all soon!

Jurassic World Rebirth - Feb 5

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Therefore, I looked at the upcoming JWR movie trailer, (due to come in summer 2025 for now), and it was something else.

What is it, then? A recycled chimera, pun intended. …Well, a recycled and a rebooted chimera, to be fair. In the 2022 film, ‘Dominion’, there were non-avian dinosaurs, (as well as other prehistoric reptiles) all over the Earth once more, and as the mini-movie ‘Battle of the Big Rock’ showed, the JP/W franchise was going with this setting once more.

Time passed, not so much within that universe, as within our real world, and in the ‘Rebirth’ film the non-avian dinosaurs have largely disappeared from our planet again, with just a few select populations within the tropical (and the subtropical?) belt. Put otherwise, this is the situation with had in the second and third Jurassic Park films, where non-avian dinosaurs lived only a couple of ex-lab sites’ islands and nowhere else. The franchise tried re-running itself in a new direction with the second and especially the third Jurassic World film and now that that trilogy is done, they are returning to the original setting – modern world, restrained dinosaurs. Pause.

In the trailer, both the mosasaur and the pterosaurs, (reminiscent of the RL Tapejara or some similar species), are hanging around the island site as well. Why? While the dinosaurs- while the non-avian dinosaurs are restrained by air and sea, the mosasaur can swim all over the globe, while the pterosaurs are fliers. Period. They can go anywhere they want, but they are here, because the movie’s plot is vintage RPG: go there, I know not where, bring back what, I know not. In this case, it is the DNA of the three biggest dinosaur species on the site so that a miracle cure can be made. Didn’t we see something similar in the ‘Dominion’ movie with Maisie and co.? We did, but in ‘Rebirth’ trailer, there are no mention of Owen, Claire, Maisie, Blue, or Beta, so odds are that they will not be mentioned in the actual movie either. Continuity? What continuity?

The new characters are your run-of-the-mill modern stereotypes: a warrior woman, an intelligent and sensitive scholar man, and another man, who is the modern P.O.C. sidekick; (the other two are WASPs, or can pass for them). Together, the three of them must compete the quest, or… they will die, and their superiors will send a new team, most likely. Somehow, ‘Rebirth’ makes ‘Naruto’ (anime and manga) look like a masterpiece, in the terms of the plot…

Anything else? Ah, yes, the actual chimera (chimeras) of the movie – the hybrid/mutant dinosaurs. Somehow, ever since the first JW film, the JP franchise was fiddling with hybrid/mutant dinosaurs in its’ games and like, and now, after a pause in the third JW film, (no mutant/hybrid reptiles there), we’re back with them. The regular theropod dinosaurs (aka most of the dinosaur carnivores) are no longer enough…

Therefore, to recap, we got a JP/W movie that has a recycled plot (from several previous films, but still), clichéd/stereotypical characters, and completely unrealistic monsters. By contrast, the original MC novels that started it all were at least trying to be informational, (if not educational), and entertaining. How it all has ended! As a direct opposite of what it once has been, that is how…

For now though, this is it. See you all soon!

YFNSM, series premiere - Jan 30

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks; sometimes, it just sucks and nothing quite feels right or goes right, you know? Therefore, let us talk about the new ‘YFNSM’ show instead.

The show’s premiere – a double feature – started strong enough; we got to see Peter Parker in becoming the titular character and in action as the titular character; we saw some of his classmates, including Loomie Lincoln, who’s probably going to become a villain named Tombstone soon enough, and Nico Minoru, who is usually one of the Runaways instead, (remember the live-action series? They were not bad, especially the first two seasons, but that is unimportant); and more importantly, we met the Osborns – Norman, and his son Harry. They are important, because both would wear the mantle of the Green Goblin, Spider-Man’s archenemy, in this universe. Pause.

All of this is delivered/depicted in a style that feels like a vintage comic book series, which is also impressive, but, the fact is, that ‘YFNSM’ is yet another reset of the Spider-Man universe; everything is new in it – new faces, new redesigns for the old faces – and yet nothing stands out: Spider-Man has so many TV cartoon shows under his belt that so far this feels just one more face in the crowd.

The 2024 movie ‘Kraven’ about the titular foe of Spider-Man, on the other hand, was something new – so far, until 2024, Kraven never had a movie of his own, and was, indeed, often passed over in favor of other Spider-Man foes, such as the Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus. In the 2024 film, meanwhile, we saw Kraven, as well as other characters like the Rhino and Chameleon, and, well, meet them. Pause.

Kraven wasn’t a good movie; one of its’ problems was the mishandling of the plot. It was supposed to be a ‘hero’s journey’ sort of plot, such as it was in the other SUMC movies, and all of them have their own problems; in Kraven’s case, it was the timeskip – one moment we see the titular character in his youth just gaining his metaphorical footing, the next he is an adult and is already established himself in his world – but we don’t see it, and therefore we cannot relate to him, or accept his progress, because it isn’t there. Team Sony would have done better in making ‘Kraven’ a two-parter: first part is Kraven’s youth, and the second – his adulthood and dealing with the Rhino, (for example). Instead, team Sony compressed those two films into one, and failure was the result.

And yet, with ‘Kraven’ team Sony tried to do something fresh and new, while the ‘YFNSM’ TV series just give us another ‘life and times of Spider-Man’ package. There was a Spider-Man cartoon show on TV since the second half of the 20^th century, so up to now ‘YFNSM’ is not making any breakthroughs for Marvel™ - but maybe Marvel™ doesn’t need them right now? ‘Kraven’ was flawed, and AAA… well, we’ve discussed AAA at length during the 2024, and let us not start now – it’s done for the moment, hopefully…

In fact, for the moment, we are done, as the new Spider-Man show does not offer too much to discuss for the moment. (Proportionally, it is already better than AAA was). Therefore, for now, this is it. See you all soon.

Rick Riordan, 'Wrath of a Triple Goddess' - Dec 11

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about Mr. Riordan’s 2024 novel, ‘Wrath of the Triple Goddess’, instead. In this novel, Percy, Annabeth, and Grover encounter the titular goddess – Hecate – and she’s… not being very wrathful, in fact. Rather, she wants Percy, (with Annabeth and Grover helping him, for it is a big job, even for Percy), to look over her house and her pets while she goes out of the US to celebrate Halloween all over the rest of the planet (Earth). Pause.

Here is the thing. The first novel of this trilogy, ‘The Chalice of the Gods’, (2023), had Percy, Annabeth and Grover undergo some pointed personal development; Percy, in particular had to literally wrestle with (the god of) old age, while earlier in the novel Hebe the goddess of youth turned the trio into preteens and they had to outmaneuver her to get their actual ages back. Conversely now, in the ‘Wrath’, while the novel is about the trio, and they do get transformed – Percy into part octopus, Annabeth into part (barn) owl, and Grover becomes a human – ‘Wrath’ isn’t as focused on them, and the readers constantly get glimpses of the stories of Hecuba and Gale, (aside from the more minor characters too).

On its’ own, it is not really a problem either. Indeed, since those two characters were mentioned, we might as well discuss who they were. Hecuba was the queen of Troy, described in the ‘Iliad’, wife of king Priam. Their children included Paris, who kidnapped Helen and instigated their entire war, Hector, Troy’s greatest hero, Anchises, the father of Aeneas, who instigated Rome, and Cassandra the prophet, whom no one believed. After the fall of Troy and the death of her family, Hecuba went mad, and in some versions, transformed into a black dog. Mr. Riordan adheres to this version.

Gale is more obscure. Her claim to fame is being a lascivious witch, (aka sexually active), who turned/transformed into a weasel/marten for her troubles. More often, she is conflated with Galinctis, who was the midwife for Hercules (and his twin brother); either Hera or her daughter, the goddess of childbirth, tried to prevent the birth – literally; an act that would have killed all three. However, the cunning midwife figured it out; she confronted the disguised deity and made the latter laugh, breaking her concentration and allowing Alcmene to give birth. The midwife transformed into a weasel for her decision and was forgotten by the myths – until now.

Oh, wait, the weasel in ‘Wrath’ is actually Gale the witch turned polecat. Mr. Riordan gave Gale a brand new backstory (or at least the rough draft of one), and as for the polecat aspect…

A ‘polecat’ is a layperson’s moniker for the animals known as ‘ferrets’ in the American English instead. Compared to weasels, polecats and ferrets are bigger and proportionally more muscular; unlike martens and fishers, they hunt on the ground and in the burrows rather than in the trees. Gale, then, can be safely called a ferret, but-

-but this brings us to J-Ro and Hogwarts; Draco briefly turned into a ferret in book 4. These days, J-Ro is under a cloud for her politically incorrect statements, but her franchise is still going strong and may yet return as a TV series of all things, and so Mr. Riordan and his allies dance around the HP franchise; they don’t call it out directly, but Hecate, at the end of ‘Wrath’, is going to restart her magic school, because both she and the demigods need it.

So far so good, but where does it leave Hecate’s own demigod children? We met a few of them in the novels by now: Alabaster Torrington, Lou Ellen Blackstone, Lamia etc. Why, we actually meet another one of them, Pete the ghost in the novel, but still, ‘Wrath’ conveniently downplays this aspect of PJ-verse, plus what about continuity? ‘The Chalice’ and ‘Wrath’ and their sequel take place before ‘The Trials of Apollo’ series, and the latter had no mention of a magic school for demigods. Yes, Apollo may not have known about it – he was in some sort of a time-out before appearing in the first novel of ‘The Trials’, Percy mentioned it, but the point is that neither Hecate nor her school played any role in ‘The Trials’; Mr. Riordan and his team are trying to reset the PJ-verse in mid-stride – with mixed results.

Getting back to Gale… listen. Polecats, ferrets, weasels, mink and co. are mustelids, true carnivores. Voles, which Percy and friends mention in association with the polecats, are rodents; they are relatives of mice, but more closely related to the lemmings and the muskrat; the polecats actually eat them. To conflate voles with polecats is no more sensible than conflating the latter with moles (self-explanatory), or dholes, (Asian wild dogs, look a bit like wolves, but not very). Hell, polecats are more closely related to dogs than to voles, but that is another story. What is left?

‘Agatha all along’, (AAA). That MCU show was about same-sex characters, but also about witches and witchcraft. We have discussed AAA before, but, again, AAA is superfluous to MCU; the latter tried to make money off the same-sex community in the U.S., but nothing more: so far, you can safely exclude AAA from MCU and it will not affect the greater story at all. Yes, AAA introduced Wiccan into MCU, and now he can join the YA as the obligatory male character while his sexual orientation will never be mentioned at all, or he can continue to explore the world as a sexual minority character with Aggie-poo the ghost witch (or the witch-ghost), while never becoming involved with the YA instead. Isn’t progressive political correctness fun?

Into the fray comes Mr. Riordan with ‘Wrath’. Unlike AAA, there’s no same-sex relationships, and the book overall is more for children than for their parents, but just like AAA, it was custom-made for Halloween, apparently, as such American Halloween stables as zombies, ghosts and witches abound on its’ pages. Oh, and there’s Disney (related) product placement, and references to some of the original PJ novels too. Mr. Riordan, you should not have!

However, on a more serious note, ‘Wrath’ is better than AAA is, period. One does not want to rewatch AAA, and no matter how hard AAA tried to make its’ titular character into a tragic heroine, it never quite managed to fully do so. Rather, she came across as an unrepentant murderer and backstabber, Wanda’s attempts to redeem her be damned. (We have talked about it before). The ninth episode of AAA left some open questions, (why had Jen survive, when Davis-Hart, Wu-Gulliver, and Lilia did not, for example), but few people care about the answers for them. AAA is gone, ‘Kraven the Hunter’ film is coming up, and Marvel is doing its’ best to forget about AAA’s existence, at least for a while. ‘Wrath’, on the other hand, is not as bad; whatever else it was supposed to be, it became a PJ-verse Halloween special and should be treated only as such.

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

Herons, a fanfic - Nov 15

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so here's a brief Tolkien-based drabble instead: 

Across the multiverse…

Once upon a time, there was a war of wrath.

And the Valar burned the strongholds of Morgoth in the North to the ground.

And little was left of it, but ashes. …Ok, ashes, and the survivors, fleeing to all the four corners of the Middle-Earth.

And the Valar, the Maiar, and the rest of their allies were about to pursue them, when something else arose from the ashes: a flock of birds, long-necked, long-limbed, long-beaked, with large wings, clad in feathers of ash-grey. The birds circled once, twice, three times over the remnants of Morgoth’s fallen fortress and flew away, across the Middle-Earth, for they were the first herons of this world.

The Valar and the Maiar, (in particular, the Maia who would be later known as Radagast the Brown), just stared at the open-mouthed and open-eyed, for this was the first good news since Morgoth was defeated for good now. And as they stared and discussed among themselves the new development, someone else made good on their escape – Sauron, (of course).

“Well, this was a lark,” he thought to himself, as he made his own way across Middle-Earth, to his own secret hideout, (unknown to anyone else, good or bad). “Now it’s off to execute my next plan – one to take over the world!

End